The alleged Belgian multiple child murderer, Marc Dutroux, will today be "confronted" by two Dubliners who may prove crucial witnesses in his trial, according to reports in the Belgian press.
The two men, Mr Philip Dempsey, from Coolock, and Mr Dave McCarthy, from Darndale, will be brought to a motorway close to Brussels to face Dutroux as they give evidence to police of giving him a lift in August 1995.
According to police, Dutroux had been forced to abandon his broken-down car containing two abducted girls at the side of the motorway. He then hitched a lift with the two unknowing Dubliners who had stayed overnight at his home in Sars-la-Busissiere.
The "confrontation" is a standard part of the Belgian prosecution process, allowing witnesses and accused to challenge each others' version of events.
Police have sealed off a section of the €19 motorway until mid-afternoon and have warned commuters of potential traffic delays.
Dutroux, who has been in jail since August 1996, faces charges of murder and complicity in the murder of four children and an accomplice. His full trial is not expected to take place until late next year.
In a case that stunned Belgium, police rescued two young girls abducted by Dutroux, a convicted rapist, and his accomplice Michel Lelievre and unearthed the bodies of four more, as well as that of another alleged accomplice, Frenchman Bernard Weinstein.
Two of those who died were An Marchal and Eefje Lamprecht, two young women abducted on August 22nd, 1995, from near Antwerp. Dutroux allegedly tied them up in the boot of the car and drove them towards his home.
When he broke down he is alleged to have walked to a local garage where he persuaded the two Dubliners to give him a lift home. He is supposed to have told them he needed to get home urgently as his wife was pregnant.
By the time they woke the next morning, Dutroux had gone back to fetch the car and the two were sent on their way by his wife, Michelle Martin. Martin has also been charged with complicity in the murders.
That was the last they heard of the matter until they were told last year that police had appealed for two Irishmen to come forward as witnesses. The father of one of the two girls abducted that day, Mr Pol Marchal, has become a wellknown campaigner with other parents of disappeared children. Last year he founded a new Flemish political party to campaign for the cleaning up of the Belgian state.
