Belgian Child Killer Marc Dutroux Gets Life in Prison

Dutroux's ex-wife was given 30 years for her role in the shocking abduction and rape of six girls in the mid-1990s, four of whom died. An accomplice was jailed for 25 years and a fourth defendant for five.

"Marc Dutroux, you have been condemned to the maximum sentence," presiding judge Stephane Goux said, at the close of nearly four months of hearings dubbed Belgium's "trial of the century".

"I think that you are still facing a better fate than most of your victims, who are no longer in the world of the living," Goux said.

Sabine Dardenne, one of two girls who were rescued from a cellar where Dutroux submitted his victims to unimaginable sexual abuse, was said to be "delighted".

"A good piece of justice has finally been done," said her lawyer, Celine Parisse.

The 47-year-old Dutroux had once again protested his innocence in a last session of pleading before the sentences were pronounced, but was slapped down by Goux.

"Marc Dutroux, the verdict is clear," the judge, visibly agitated, said after a 10-minute intervention by Dutroux, who nevertheless vowed to battle to the "end of his days" to prove his innocence.

Goux handed down the sentences in an emotionless voice to a hushed courtroom, at the end of a lengthy summation of a series of crimes that traumatised Belgium and shocked the world.

For Dutroux, dubbed by the press "Belgium's most hated man," life will most likely mean life without prospect of parole.

But for his ex-wife Michelle Martin, 44, and his 33-year-old "faithful companion" Michel Lelievre, their respective terms of 30 and 25 years could in theory be cut short with good behavior.

The fourth defendant, Michel Nihoul, 63, was jailed for five years for drug-dealing and fraud. But he was acquitted last week of all charges of complicity in the abductions.

Dutroux argued all along that he was the fall-guy for a paedophile gang led by Nihoul -- a view shared by most Belgians, surveys suggest.

For Jean-Denis Lejeune, whose daughter Julie was one of two eight-year-old girls who starved to death while imprisoned by Dutroux, the sentences brought little solace.

Noting that he could meet Martin and Lelievre in the streets if they are released early, he said: "These people, even so, kidnapped children, tortured them and left them to starve.

"It leaves me with a bad taste in the mouth," Lejeune told reporters.

The acquittal of Nihoul on the charge of complicity in the kidnappings fuelled questions of whether the trial uncovered the full truth behind whether Dutroux -- as he claimed -- was merely the courier for a paedophile gang.

It did, however, revive memories of police and judicial bungling that in late 1996 saw more than 300,000 people take to the streets of Brussels in silent protest.

During the morning's pre-sentencing hearing, Martin reiterated her "profound regrets and profound remorse".

Lelievre had said: "Whatever the sentence, I will accept it." Nihoul had appealed for the "greatest clemency" from the court.

Dutroux was found guilty last Thursday of murdering two teenaged girls and an accomplice, as well as of abducting and raping the six girls.

But in one of the most harrowing aspects of the case, the prosecution said it was unable to determine precisely when Julie Lejeune and her friend Melissa Russo died an agonising death in the darkness of Dutroux's dungeon.

Dutroux claimed that his ex-wife failed to feed them but no one was ever charged with the murder of the eight-year-olds.

"We are at the end of one stage. Unfortunately, nothing has been resolved," Jean-Denis Lejeune said.

"Having to live with all these uncertainties and these grey areas means that life will remain disturbed as long as we don't know what really happened," he said.