BELGIUM: Marc Dutroux, Belgium's most reviled man, was sentenced to life in prison yesterday for kidnapping, raping and killing girls in a series of crimes that stunned the country nearly eight years ago.
After more than an hour of deliberation, the court also sentenced co-defendant Michelle Martin, Dutroux's ex-wife, to 30 years in prison; heroin addict Michel Lelievre to 25 years, and businessman Michel Nihoul to five years.
"Marc Dutroux, you have been condemned to the maximum sentence," Judge Stephane Goux told the country's most hated criminal after reading out the sentences in the eastern Belgian town of Arlon.
"I believe that you still come out of it better than most of the victims who are no longer among the living." Last week, Dutroux, (47), was found guilty of kidnapping and raping six girls, killing two of them and causing the death of two others.
Martin and Lelievre were found guilty of playing a role in the girls' kidnapping and deaths.
Although Nihoul was acquitted of conspiracy and kidnapping, he was found guilty of drug trafficking and other crimes.
The sentencing brings to a close a case that has haunted Belgians since Dutroux's arrest in 1996. Many came to believe he worked for a paedophile ring whose members included police, politicians and other influential members of society.
Dutroux had been on parole for previous rapes when he kidnapped the six girls, aged between eight and 19 years. Police later bungled the search for the victims, some of whom had been missing for more than a year. Dutroux admitted kidnapping and raping some girls but denied killing any of them, blaming other defendants for their deaths.
In his final remarks to the court before the judge and jury went into deliberations over the sentencing, Dutroux upheld his version of events. "For the record, I want to say that I didn't rape Julie and Melissa and I will continue to search for the truth about An, Eefje and Weinstein," he said.
Both aged eight years, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo were the youngest of Dutroux's victims, dying of starvation in a dungeon built in the basement of his house in a derelict suburb of the southern city of Charleroi.
The bodies of An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks were dug up in the backyard of a house after his arrest. The girls had been drugged, gagged, and buried alive.