Belgian Jury Convicts Marc Dutroux of Kidnapping Six Girls and Murdering Two and an Accomplice
The trial in Arlon lasted more than three months. Two girls he had held in his basement testified against him, and his ex-wife was found responsible for two more deaths.
Published
Eight years after police freed two girls from his basement, Marc Dutroux was found guilty. On June 17, 2004, a jury in Arlon, Belgium, convicted him of murder, rape and abduction.
After three days of deliberations, the 12-member jury convicted Dutroux, 47, of leading a gang that kidnapped six girls and young women in 1995 and 1996. He was found guilty of murdering two of them, An Marchal, 17, and Eefje Lambrecks, 19, who were kidnapped in Flanders and killed in 1996, and his accomplice Bernard Weinstein. He was also convicted of involvement in the kidnapping of Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, both 8, who were abducted near their homes outside Liège and died in a basement cell while Dutroux served a jail term for car theft. His ex-wife, Michelle Martin, was found responsible for their deaths; she testified she had been too afraid to go downstairs to feed them.
The last two victims, Sabine Dardenne, then 12, and Laetitia Delhez, then 14, were rescued from the basement two days after Dutroux's arrest on August 13, 1996. Dutroux admitted kidnapping and abusing them, and both testified at the trial. He denied the killings and portrayed himself as the pawn of a crime ring, a claim prosecutors said there was no evidence for. His co-defendant Michel Lelièvre was convicted of complicity in the kidnappings. Michel Nihoul, a Brussels businessman Dutroux accused of being the gang's mastermind, was acquitted as an accomplice to the kidnappings but convicted of belonging to a gang that smuggled drugs and people into Belgium.
Dutroux had been on parole for raping young girls in the 1980s, and his brief escape from jail in 1998 led to the resignations of Belgium's justice and interior ministers and the head of the state police. "They are guilty of everything, even the killings, even the torture," An Marchal's father told RTBF television. On June 22, 2004, the jury and a three-judge panel sentenced Dutroux to life in prison.
Sources
- Paedophile Dutroux guilty of murder, The Guardian (agencies)
- Notorious child rapist-murderer convicted, NBC News (AP)
- Dutroux gets life in prison, The Guardian (staff and agencies)
Related News
- August 28, 2012: Belgium's Highest Court Clears Early Release of Michelle Martin, Ex-Wife and Accomplice of Marc Dutroux