Dutroux claims he is not a murderer

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.

Speaking to the 12 member jury, Dutroux expressed ”sincere regret” for what he did but insisted his role was small and seeking anew to shift responsibility to his three co-defendants and a shadowy crime network he claims is still at large.

“I am not a murderer,” Dutroux told the packed court in Alon. “I am not asking for forgiveness, I can’t do much to change the irreversible.”

He said he nevertheless bore responsibility for the four victims who died because he “did not protect them enough”.

Dutroux, who faces up to life in prison if convicted, spoke for just over three hours, playing up the role of his co-defendants, including his ex-wife Michel Martin, in the crimes and playing down the central role prosecutors say he had.

He admitted kidnapping and sexually abusing the two surviving victims, Sabine Dardenne and Laetitia Delhez, who were rescued from their basement prison in his house two days before his arrest in August 1996.

But he denied killing two teenagers, An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks, as well as an alleged accomplice, Bernard Weinstein.

He also denied involvement in the kidnapping and deaths of two eight-year-olds, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, both of whom starved to death in early 1996.

All five bodies were found buried on Dutroux properties after his arrest.

“I feel responsible for the deaths of An and Eefje but I did not murder them,” Dutroux said.

He said his ex-wife “was at fault” for the death of the two eight-year-olds while he was behind bars for car theft.

“He is trying to mix fact with fiction,” Martin’s lawyer, Sarah Pollet, said outside the court. “He is trying to accuse others for things he is responsible for.”

Dutroux said the investigation that led to the trial was riddled with holes and that investigators did not follow up on any clues that might not have led to him.

“That would only have destroyed the theory of a single perpetrator,” he said.

He listed several file numbers to the court, pleading for police to follow up on clues that he said would prove his claims that he was just a “small fish” working for a sinister network active in kidnapping girls to be sold into prostitution – a scenario rejected by prosecutors.

Judge Stephane Goux last week dismissed his motion asking for additional criminal investigations, saying he saw no grounds for reopening the files.

Dutroux maintained he was just a “marionette puppet in a show trial”, taking the fall for the crime ring, which he blames for the murder of Marchal and Lambrecks.

“The murderer of An and Eefje is still free,” he said.

Dutroux also lashed out against psychiatric experts who testified he was a psychopath and a narcissistic manipulator who knew exactly what he was doing.

One of the experts likened Dutroux’s character to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who helped organise the extermination of Jews during the Second World War.

“Eichmann was a sadist, but I never did anything to the girls,” Dutroux said.

Lawyers for the families of the victims denounced Dutroux’s speech, as did his ex-wife and another co-defendant, Michel Nihoul, both of whom are alleged to have been involved in the kidnappings.

In his closing statement, Nihoul reiterated his contention that he played no part in the crimes, while Martin said she was sorry for her involvement. The other defendant, Michel Lelievre, did not speak.

The jury will begin deliberations on Monday and verdict could come as early as the middle of next week, ending a saga that began nearly a decade ago.

The disappearances and subsequent bungling of the investigation shocked the country and led to an increased focus on child protection and reforms of the judiciary and police.

Dutroux, aged 47, is charged with the murder of two girls, kidnapping leading to the death of another two, and faces charges of abduction, rape, torture and drug trafficking in the mid 1990s.

He also is charged with murder in the death of Weinstein.