Fourniret: Killer refuses to apologise

MICHEL FOURNIRET, 65, dubbed “the Ogre of the Ardennes”, has shown no remorse for his alleged crimes, prosecutors say, and one girl who managed to escape from him said he boasted that he was “far better” than Marc Dutroux, the Belgian paedophile and serial killer.

Investigators say that Fourniret planned to use his trial as a platform to parade before the world’s media — though yesterday he refused to speak unless tried behind closed doors.

Fourniret, who has admitted to seven murders, has said that he will not apologise for his crimes and has made a series of bizarre requests, demanding, for instance, that women on the jury certify that they were virgins at marriage.

Detectives say that behind the boastful façade, Fourniret, a bespectacled chess player who likes to quote Russian literature, is concerned that the trial may delve into things he would prefer to hide, such as his problem with premature ejaculation .

Documents presented by investigators show that he referred to his victims disparagingly as “membranes on legs”.

In a recent letter to police, Fourniret asked a judge to also put him on trial for the murders of two other French girls — Estelle Mouxin, nine, and 19-year-old Marie-Anghle Domece.

He reportedly wrote: “I would like to talk to the parents face-to-face. The risk of my premature death or losing my mental faculties means I cannot leave these three affairs by the wayside. They should be added.”

In a separate investigation, he is also accused of the murder of 20-year-old British student Joanna Parrish, whose body was found in a river near the town of Auxerre in 1990.

For years her family fought for French police to investigate Fourniret.

A third-year language undergraduate at the University of Leeds, Parrish is believed to have been contacted by Fourniret after she placed an advertisement in a local newspaper, offering English lessons.

Her father Roger, 63, previously claimed to have seen evidence proving his daughter was subjected to the same kind of abuse as other young girls alleged to have been attacked by Fourniret.