Marc Dutroux, chief defendant in a horrific child rape and murder trial that has transfixed Belgium for over three months, rejected the most serious charges against him today in a final courtroom appeal before a jury decides his fate.

Marc Dutroux, chief defendant in a horrific child rape and murder trial that has transfixed Belgium for three months, went into the witness box today to make his final arguments before a jury decides his fate.

Marc Dutroux acted on behalf of a criminal network to kidnap and sell children into the sex trade, his lawyer claimed today during closing arguments in the child sex and murder trial.

THE surviving victims of child-rapist Marc Dutroux yesterday returned to the dungeon where he incarcerated and abused them in 1996.

Photographers from several Belgian newspapers and the French weekly Paris Match were today barred from entering the courtroom where Marc Dutroux is on trial for kidnapping, child rape and murder after ignoring a ban on publishing pictures of him in the dock.

Eliciting gasps of horror in the courtroom, Marc Dutroux took the stand today to describe how he kidnapped and raped young girls in the mid-1990s.

A man testifying at his own trial for kidnapping, abusing and killing young girls in the mid-1990s, said today he built and wired a secret cell in his basement for the victims on orders of a child-sex network operating in Belgium.

Prosecutors used the second day in a child-sex and murder trial today to paint a gruesome picture of crimes they claim Marc Dutroux and his co-defendants committed against six young girls in the 1990s.

BELGIUM'S public enemy Number One and three co-defendants went on trial yesterday for kidnapping, abusing and killing young girls in a mid-1990s crime spree that shocked the country.

Belgium’s public enemy Number One and three co-defendants went on trial today for kidnapping, abusing and killing young girls in a mid-1990s crime spree that shocked the country.

Belgium’s public enemy number one and three accomplices, including his ex-wife, were going on trial today for kidnapping, abusing and killing young girls in a revolting 1990s crime spree that shocked the country.

A BELGIAN court yesterday ordered the trial by jury of Marc Dutroux, nearly seven years after the suspected child killer and paedophile was first arrested over a series of abductions, rapes and murders that shocked the world.