Convicted pedophile Marc Dutroux was sentenced to life imprisonment Tuesday for kidnapping, raping and killing girls as young as 8, closing a case that transfixed Belgium for nearly eight years.
After hours of deliberation, the court also imprisoned Dutroux’s ex-wife and two other people at the end of a legal saga that led to widespread but unproven suspicions a top-level pedophile ring was protecting the country’s most hated man.
“Marc Dutroux, you have been condemned to the maximum sentence,” said Judge Stephane Goux after reading the sentence to a hushed courtroom in this eastern Belgian town.
“I believe that you still come out of it better than most of the victims who are no longer among the living.”
Dutroux, 47, showed no emotion as he sat behind bulletproof glass next to the other defendants. He was found guilty last week of kidnapping and raping six girls, killing two of them and causing the death of two others.
His former wife, Michelle Martin, was sentenced to 30 years and heroin addict Michel Lelievre to 25 years for their roles in the girls’ kidnapping and deaths.
Businessman Michel Nihoul received five years. He was acquitted of conspiracy and kidnapping, but found guilty of drug trafficking and other crimes.
None of the defendants has the right to appeal, but under Belgian law they can seek parole after serving one-third of their sentences. The trial began on March 1.
Crimes haunted Belgium
The crimes had haunted Belgians since Dutroux’s arrest in 1996. Many of them came to believe he worked under the protection of a secret pedophile ring whose members included police, politicians and other influential figures.
Dutroux had been on parole for previous rapes when he kidnapped the six girls, aged 8 to 19.
In blunders that enraged the public, police bungled the search for the victims, some of whom had been missing for more than a year. More than a year after his arrest, Dutroux managed to escape custody briefly during a court visit.
Dutroux admitted kidnapping and raping some girls but denied killing any of them, blaming other defendants for their deaths.
He also played on the conspiracy theory, saying he supplied girls to members of the supposed ring because he feared for his life. He provided no evidence.
In remarks to the court before the judge and jury decided on the sentencing, Dutroux stuck to his version of events.
“For the record, I want to say that I didn’t rape Julie and Melissa and I will continue to search for the truth about An, Eefje and Weinstein,” he said.
Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, both 8, were the youngest of Dutroux’s victims, dying of starvation in a dungeon in the basement of his house in a derelict suburb of the southern city of Charleroi.
The bodies of An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks were dug up next to a house after his arrest. They had been drugged, gagged and buried alive.
The body of Dutroux’s suspected accomplice, Bernard Weinstein, as well as those of Lejeune and Russo, were dug up in the backyard of another of Dutroux’s houses.