The trial of Marc Dutroux opened in Belgium today in which the convicted child rapist faces charges of kidnapping and raping six girls and killing four of them.
Convicted child rapist Marc Dutroux: his murder trial opened in Belgium today
Marc Dutroux and three co-defendants went on trial today for kidnapping, abusing and killing young girls in a mid-1990s crime spree that shocked Belgium.
The first day of the trial of Dutroux, 47, his ex-wife and two others was
spent selecting 12 jurors amid tight security and intense attention from Belgian and foreign media.
In a letter to the VTM television network, Dutroux said he was part of a
criminal network with tentacles in Belgian law enforcement.
He called co-defendant Michel Nihoul, a 62-year-old Brussels lawyer, an underworld lynchpin.
"Of course it happens often that defendants accuse each other," said court spokesman Mr Nico Snelders.
The trial focuses on six girls, two of them only eight years old, who were randomly kidnapped and abused in a cell behind a custom-built door in a basement in one of Dutroux's homes.
Four died and two were rescued in a case that showed how shoddy police let a convicted child rapist operate unchecked.
A 1997 parliamentary probe found rival police units hindered the search for Dutroux.
Investigating magistrates have argued over whether he was a loner or part of a paedophilia network.
The ex-electrician was free on parole for abduction and raping young women, including one minor, in the mid-1990s when the kidnappings, alleged rapes and killings took place.
Dutroux allegedly began raping girls as young as eight, helped by his wife, Michelle Martin, 44, who sometimes drove the kidnap van, and two others, Michel Lelievre, 32, and Michel Nihoul, 62.
Hundreds of police deployed in Arlon, a sleepy southern Belgian town where the trial opened in a new, barricaded courthouse where the defendants sat behind bulletproof glass.
During jury selection, the four accused sat silently in the dock. At one point Dutroux seemed to nod off.
"Your client is going to fall asleep," Judge Goux told Xavier Magnee, one of Dutroux' three lawyers. Goux apologised to the 180 candidate jurors for the slow selection process. "There are so many of you. This can't be done as quickly as you like."
Tomorrow, the prosecution will read out the charges and on Wednesday the defendants will enter their pleas. Some 500 witnesses will be heard and the trial will probably run until late May.