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.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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