A Belgian court has postponed a decision on sending suspected child killer and paedophile Marc Dutroux for full trial by jury.
The court in the eastern city of Liege said it would decide on April 30th whether to send Dutroux to trial before an assize court, in the latest delay in Belgium's most notorious ever criminal case.
Dutroux was arrested in August 1996, but a series of investigations and legal wranglings in the Belgian court system has held up the case.
He is charged with kidnapping and murdering four young girls, whose bodies were found on his properties near the Belgian city of Charleroi in 1996.
He is also charged with the rape of two other young girls and running an international paedophilia network.
The case provoked an international outcry against the sexual abuse of children, and prompted tough crackdowns on child sex crime networks, especially on the Internet.
In January a court in Neufchateau, southeast Belgium, ruled that there was sufficient evidence to send Dutroux, his wife and a third accused to court for a trial.
Observers say the case is unlikely to come to trial before the end of 2003 or the start of 2004.
AFP