Belgian prosecutors on have called on a jury to send Marc Dutroux to prison for the rest of his life after it found the country's most reviled criminal guilty of kidnapping, raping, and killing girls.
Public Prosecutor Michel Bourlet told the court in this eastern Belgian town near Luxembourg today that Dutroux deserved the stiffest penalty for his crimes.
Mr Bourlet also called on the 12-member jury, which will decide on the sentencing with the judge tomorrow, not to give Dutroux the chance of parole. "Marc Dutroux is a repeat offender and I believe that he will always be one," he said.
Dutroux (47) was on parole for rape when he was arrested in 1996 on suspicion of kidnapping six girls, some of whom had been missing for more than a year.
Last week, Dutroux was found guilty of kidnapping and raping the girls, killing two of them and causing the death of two others after more than three months of trial proceedings that kept the country in its thrall.
The youngest victims - both aged eight years - died of starvation in a dungeon built in the basement of his house.
Prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Andries urged the jury not to let extenuating circumstances dissuade it from giving maximum sentences to Dutroux's co-defendants, his ex-wife Michelle Martin and Michel Lelievre.
"We will talk to you about an unhappy childhood, but where is the childhood of An and Eefje, of Julie and Melissa?" he asked the court, referring to the dead girls.
The prosecutors have asked Martin and Lelievre to be each sentenced to 30 years in prison for similar crimes.