Full scale of horror starts to unfold in Dutroux case

By STEPHEN CASTLE in Brussels

Two teenage victims of Marc Dutroux were buried alive, after being raped and held prisoner, prosecutors made clear for the first time yesterday, as the full, horrific scale of Belgium's child-sex and murder trial began to emerge.

Reading from a lengthy statement, prosecutor Michel Bourlet described how six girls were kidnapped, abused and incarcerated - some in a makeshift underground cell beneath Dutroux's home - and how four of them were killed.

An Marchal, 17, and Eefje Lambrecks, 19, were drugged and "wrapped in plastic" before being dumped in a backyard grave. According to autopsies "the victims were not dead when they were buried", Bourlet told the court.

Two kidnapped 8-year-olds, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, starved to death while imprisoned in Dutroux's cellar as he served a sentence for another offence, the prosecution says.

The trial has finally come to court almost eight years after the discovery of crimes that triggered a political crisis in Belgium.

Dutroux, who is expected to enter his formal plea today, has so far admitted abduction and rape but denied murdering any of the girls. Also on trial are his estranged wife, Michelle Martin, an accomplice and drug addict Michel Lelievre, and a businessman and police informant, Michel Nihoul.

"They knew what they were doing," Bourlet said. "Marc Dutroux sought to have sex with the young girls without their consent."

Seated behind bullet-proof glass, 47-year-old Dutroux, showed no emotion as the charges were read out though he, alone among the accused, wrote notes on his copy of the indictment. In court he did not speak to his ex-wife who was sitting next to him.

Defence lawyers are questioning why the prosecution has ignored evidence such as hundreds of hair strands found at the main crime scene that did not match those of Dutroux or the other suspects.

Dutroux has claimed in a letter sent to a Belgian TV station that he was only a part of a criminal network, a theme on which he is expected to elaborate.

The delay in arresting Dutroux and finding the girls prompted conspiracy theories about Dutroux receiving protection from highly placed people.

Prosecutors said that, in denying the murder of four of six abducted girls, Dutroux had put the blame on others, including his ex-wife and his murdered accomplice. But Bourlet said there was forensic evidence proving that Dutroux raped his victims repeatedly during captivity.

He added that Dutroux admitted kidnapping and abusing girls on trips to Slovakia, and that the rape of a young girl is visible on a seized video. In addition to being accused of the murders of An and Eefje, Dutroux is charged with killing an accomplice, Bernard Weinstein, who was buried alive, and of kidnapping three of the girls.

- INDEPENDENT