I was fall guy for paedophile gang, claims Dutroux

CHILD rapist Marc Dutroux has claimed he was the scapegoat for a shadowy paedophile gang, as for the first time he gave graphic evidence yesterday at a trial that has Belgium in its lurid grip.

On the third day of the trial, Dutroux addressed the court from behind bullet-proof glass to claim two police officers were part of a sinister network that kidnapped and raped girls to order. He recounted his role in the horrifying series of events that led to the discoveries of the bodies of four girls and the rescue of two others in the summer of 1996.

Dutroux lost his composure only once during his three-hour testimony, when asked by judge, Stephane Goux, to sum up how he felt about those events.

“I made mistakes, I even committed some crimes. If we could go back to before... but we can’t,” the jobless electrician, who faces life in jail, said.

He is accused of kidnapping and raping six girls in the 1990s and killing four of them. By his own admission, Dutroux turned a secret cellar in one of his homes into a dungeon where young girls were forced to submit to unspeakable acts. But the man the Belgian press has dubbed the ‘Monster of Charleroi’ denied murder, or any role in the kidnapping of two eight-year-old girls whose horrible end sickened the world.

Dutroux said the blame lay largely with his three co-accused, including his wife and a convicted fraudster, Michel Nihoul, who was the front man for the supposed paedophile gang, and a murdered accomplice.

The claims provoked outrage from lawyers representing the victims.

“He presents himself as the protector of these young girls. It’s outrageous,” said Georges-Henri Beauthier, who is representing Laetitia Delhez, one of the two girls rescued from Dutroux’s clutches in August 1996.