Dutroux launches appeal
2004-06-24 07:49
Brussels, Belgium - Marc Dutroux lodged an appeal on Wednesday with the Belgian supreme court against his conviction for multiple child rape and murder, his lawyer said.
A day after he was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, Dutroux and his two co-defendants - his ex-wife Michelle Martin and Michel Lelievre - were ordered on Wednesday to pay damages exceeding €1m (about R7.5m) to the families of his victims.
Dutroux's appeal claims procedural errors were made during his three-and-a-half month trial, in a case that haunted Belgium for nearly a decade because of the astounding cruelty of the crimes followed by shoddy police work.
Xavier Magnee, Dutroux's lawyer, said his client filed the appeal from his prison in the south Belgian town of Arlon where his jury trial was held.
Under Belgian law, a jury trial verdict can only be appealed on procedural grounds to the Cour de Cassation, the country's supreme court.
Dutroux, 47, was convicted last week of abducting, imprisoning and raping six girls in 1995 and 1996 and murdering two - 17-year-old An Marchal and 19-year-old Eefje Lambrecks - and an accomplice, Bernard Weinstein.
Two other girls starved to death while being held in a hidden dungeon in his basement. The last two victims came out alive: Sabine Dardenne, then 12, and Laetitia Delhez, then 14. Both were rescued from the basement two days after Dutroux's arrest.
Stephane Goux, the presiding judge at Dutroux's trial, ordered Dutroux and his co-defendants to pay damages exceeding €1m to the families of his victims. The co-defendants received prison terms of up to 30 years.
It is unlikely Dutroux and his accomplices can pay damages, but the families of their victims are each entitled to payments from a victims-of-crimes fund totalling a maximum of €62 000.
- AP