A Belgian court today ruled that a suspect in the killing of two schoolgirls whose bodies were found in a storm drain yesterday will remain in custody.
This is despite protests from his lawyers who argued there was no evidence to link him to the crimes.
Nathalie Mahy(10), right, and Stacy Lemmens (7) Photo: AP
Convicted child rapist Abdallah Aid Oud (39) has been charged with the girls' kidnapping and has been held by police since handing himself in on June 13th.
He denies any involvement in their disappearance from a city street in Liege almost three weeks ago. Stacy and Nathalie were last seen at a Liege cafe during a festival on the evening of June 9th.
Results of postmortems on the two girls were expected later today.
Mourners laid flowers and placed candles near the spot where the remains of Stacy Lemmens (7) and Nathalie Mahy (10) were found yesterday 10 yards apart stuffed into a storm sewer covered by thick undergrowth alongside a railway line.
For Belgium, the gruesome discovery revived painful memories of the Marc Dutroux case.
A convicted pedophile, Dutroux snatched eight-year-olds Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo from a Liege street in 1985, held them for months, before allowing them to starve to death locked in a basement while he served time for a minor offence.
AP