'Most-hated man' goes on trial

2004-02-26 13:59

Arlon, Belgium - The quiet Belgian town of Arlon is bracing for the country's "trial of the century," as alleged child kidnapper, rapist and confessed killer Marc Dutroux finally goes on trial on Monday.

The world's media are descending on the sleepy town near the French and Luxembourg borders, whose 24 000 inhabitants have mixed feelings about the looming spotlight centred on Belgium's most hated man.

Dutroux, a convicted child rapist, has been in custody since August 1996 charged with kidnapping and murdering four girls, including eight-year-olds Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, whose brutally abused corpses were found a year after their kidnap in 1995.

He is also charged with the abduction and rape of two other girls who survived their ordeal in an underground dungeon. If convicted he faces life behind bars.

Police also dug up the body of Bernard Weinstein, an accomplice whom Dutroux has admitted murdering. Dutroux is also charged with the kidnapping and rape of three Slovakian girls.

The town's mood is one of calm before the storm. Several cafes around the Palace of Justice - to be sealed by a massive security clampdown during the at least two-month trial - have been transformed into broadcasting studios.

Brief escape

More than 300 police are being deployed, both to prevent any attack on Dutroux himself and to prevent a repetition of a brief escape by he made in 1998, when he overpowered a policeman.

On a practical level, locals expect the trial to cause severe disruption. "We have had fewer customers in recent days, although I expect to sell more newspapers when the trial starts," said town-centre newsagent Ruddy Samain.

Arlon was chosen as the trial venue because the Dutroux probe started with the kidnapping of Laetitia Delhez from the village of Bertrix, in Luxembourg province of which the town is the capital.

"The reputation, good or bad" given to Arlon by the trial "doesn't only have disadvantages," said Denis Baude, who runs a video store in the town.

"I hope my turnover will increase a little bit," he said, while at the same time criticising those who "are profiting from it by demanding exorbitant rents" to media representatives and others who are invading the town.

But above all everyone's thoughts go to the six girls who fell victim to Dutroux.

Survived ordeal

Sabine Dardenne, one of the two victims who survived their ordeal at Dutroux's hands, has said she wants to "look him in the eyes" at the trial.

"I've been waiting for eight years for this moment," she said in a newspaper interview last week. "I want to look Dutroux in the eyes and show him that despite everything he made me suffer, I have not gone mad.

"I can't forget what happened, but I am alive and I can prove it," said the 20-year-old.

- AFP