FRANCE: Police in France used excavating equipment yesterday to search for the body of a five-year-old Belgian girl, who was raped and murdered by members of a French paedophile ring two years ago, writes Lara Marlowe from Paris.
The search continues in the communal garden of a modest housing estate at Outreau, a town of 16,000 in the Pas-de-Calais department. It was prompted by a letter sent to the local television station and an investigating magistrate by Daniel Legrand, who is in prison on charges of raping 10 children and producing child pornography videos.
Mr Legrand said he witnessed the rape and murder by beating of the small girl at the end of 1999 in the Tour-du-Renard housing estate, where 24 children were taken from their parents last year after they were sexually assaulted and they have been placed with foster parents. Sixteen men and women are now in prison in connection with the ring.
Mr Legrand said in his testimony that one resident of the housing estate had hit the child to silence her and she died from the blows. His wife, who is also under investigation, corroborated Mr Legrand's story and pointed police to the plot of land.
The child abuse took place in two apartments in the housing estate, where couples used their children, aged between four and 12 years, as sexual objects. They invited neighbours to parties where the children were undressed and then "rented" to guests to pay their parents' debts.
Clients from outside the neighbourhood reportedly included a bailiff and his wife, who is a nurse, a working priest and a taxi driver. The crimes were discovered when a nursery school teacher noticed children behaving strangely.
Three of the children have identified a farm near Ypres where they were taken to make porngraphic films. Mr Legrand is the son of a Frenchman who owned a sex shop in Ostende, Belgium, which sold the videos. He is accused of sexually molesting 10 children and helping his father to record the cassettes.
Mr Legrand's hand-written letter said the two people who raped the Belgian girl threatened to kill him if he talked. But he wanted to relieve his conscience and claimed "total innocence" in the child's death. A second witness, a woman who is imprisoned for having prostituted her own children, confirmed that her husband participated in the rape, murder and burial of the Belgian girl, whom she said looked North African. The suspect, in his 50s and already in prison, is described as "very elegant".
Belgian authorities said no five-year-olds were reported missing in late 1999. But if the victim's parents exploited her, there would be no record of her disappearance. The search has brought back memories of the Belgian child rapist Marc Dutroux, although there is no evidence of a connection with the 1990s paedophile ring centred around Dutroux.