A Belgian jury yesterday found Marc Dutroux, the country's most hated man, guilty of leading a band of criminals to kidnap and rape six girls and kill four of them.
After three days of deliberations, the chief juror gave the courtroom the jury's answers to 243 questions on the role of Dutroux and three co-defendants in a series of crimes that shocked Belgium nearly eight years ago.
The verdict is the climax to a trial that gripped Belgians for more than three months with details of a dungeon, suspected police complicity, and suggested links to a Satanic cult.
"Finally we will be able to punish these assassins," Jeanine Lejeune, grandmother of one of the victims, told local television as she entered the courthouse before the verdict was read. "This is the day that we will avenge my little girl."
The 47-year old Dutroux, his ex-wife Michelle Martin, 44, Michel Lelievre, 33, and businessman Michel Nihoul, 63, were absent from the courtroom.
The jury failed to return a verdict in the case of Nihoul, who Dutroux alleged was the ringleader of a shadowy pedophile gang.
But Dutroux faces life in jail after being found guilty of the murders of 17-year-old An Marchal and 19-year-old Eefje Lambrecks.
The girls' bodies were unearthed in the summer of 1996 from the garden of a house belonging to Dutroux in the suburbs of the industrial city of Charleroi. Autopsy reports showed that they had been raped and beaten.
Dutroux was also charged with kidnapping two eight-year-olds, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, whose bodies were buried in the garden of another property belonging to him.
They had starved to death and had been repeatedly raped. But the prosecution said it had been unable to determine precisely when they died and so could not press murder charges against Dutroux, who claimed he was in jail for car theft at the time.
The three co-accused were charged with offences including abduction, rape and drug-dealing, and face up to 30 years.
Dutroux claims he has been made the scapegoat for a shadowy pedophile network that included highly-placed individuals. But apart from dropping tantalizing hints during the trial, he has failed to name names.
Sentencing will come after the prosecutor, defense lawyers and the suspects have had a chance to react to the verdict.
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS