Snappers barred from Dutroux trial courtroom

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.

Dutroux held up a large white envelope today to shield his face from flashing cameras on the other side of the dock’s bulletproof glass divide.

The Dutroux case focuses on the fate of six girls who the prosecutions says were held prisoner in a basement cell built by Dutroux and repeatedly abused.

Four of them were killed, including two eight-year olds who were starved to death.

Some 1,300 Belgian and foreign journalists are accredited to cover the trial which has dominated Belgian news media and made headlines around Europe.

Judge Stephane Goux on the opening day of the trial on Monday ordered a ban on “identifiable” photos of Dutroux after he requested his lawyers exercise his legal right of privacy.

Belgian papers and Paris Match published pictures of Dutroux in court today. The French news weekly also carried pictures from his jail cell.

Inside the court, the 12-member jury heard the first witness, Jean-Marc Connerotte, an investigating magistrate who was taken off the case after Dutroux lawyers complained about his attendance at a fund-raising dinner organised by a group supporting the victims’ families.

Connerotte was heralded for achieving a breakthrough in the hunt for the missing girls in 1996 when he linked a white van used in the kidnaps to Dutroux, who was then out on parole after serving time for five counts of rape, including one involving a minor.

In his testimony Connerotte stressed the involvement of the other three defendants in the crimes. Prosecutors argue Dutroux was helped by his ex-wife Michelle Martin, 44 Michel Lelievre, 32 and Michel Nihoul, a 62-year-old Brussels businessman.

In testimony, Dutroux admitted raping the surviving girls, Laetitia Delhez, then 14, and Sabine Dardenne, then 12.

He gave explicit details of the sex-crimes that drew gasps of horror from a packed public gallery.

However, he denied killing the other abducted girls Eefje Lambrecks,19, An Marchal, 17, and eight-year olds Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo.