BELGIUM: Belgium joined relatives in mourning a murdered seven- year-old girl yesterday as television broadcast her funeral live to a nation still haunted by memories of paedophile killer Marc Dutroux.
A white hearse carried a white coffin adorned with white roses to a church service attended by friends of Stacy Lemmens, many also in white, echoing the 300,000-strong "white march" that followed Dutroux's crimes a decade ago. Stacy and Nathalie Mahy (10) went missing during a street festival in the eastern city of Liege on June 9th.
Their bodies were discovered in a sewer last week. Both had been strangled and the older girl raped.
Belgian authorities have charged a local man, Abdallah Ait Oud, with the girls' abduction. Oud says he is innocent. - (Reuters)
