bobandcarole wrote:
> Pedophile Has Belgians Clamoring for Death Penalty
> by Marlise Simons
>
> PARIS -- It is a horror story told many times in many places: a
> convicted child kidnapper and rapist serves time in prison. He is let
> off early for good behavior. The pedophile, unable or unwilling to
> control his demons, strikes again.
>
> Marc Dutroux, 39, an unemployed Belgian electrician who was previously
> convicted of abusing children, has followed the pattern to the letter.
> In recent days, he has released two pallid young girls, aged 12 and 14,
> who were sexually abused while locked in a hidden dungeon in one of his
> several homes. Then he led police to the secret graves of two
> 8-year-old girls he said had starved to death while in his home.
>
> After pornographic films and photographs were found in another of the
> houses he owns in different towns in Belgium, the police said he
> confessed to his role in the kidnapping last year of two teen-agers,
> who were 17 and 19 at the time. The two girls are still missing, but
> authorities say it is possible that they are alive.
>
> As the story unfolded in ever more gruesome detail this week, the
> people of Belgium, many of whom were familiar with the faces of the
> victims from the ubiquitous "missing" posters, have begun circulating
> petitions about measures for dealing with sex offenders and calling for
> restoring the death penalty.
>
> The case has commanded front-page attention across Europe, where it has
> revived the debate over how to punish or control known offenders, and
> what degree of freedom they should have after serving sentences.
>
> The issue of whether to notify a community that a convicted sex
> offender released from prison is in the area has been the subject of
> legislation in the United States.
>
> The fate of the six girls, and of six other children who are still
> missing, has engendered a sense of national mourning, with television
> images from across the country Wednesday showing cars driving around
> with black ribbons and demonstrators carrying signs saying, "To death."
>
>
> In Sars-la-Buissiere, a small village near Charleroi, in the south of
> Belgium, the home of the two dead girls and the site of one of
> Dutroux's houses, thousands have already filed past the two white
> coffins of the little girls, whose bodies were exhumed from their
> clandestine grave but are to be formally buried on Thursday.
>
> Some human rights groups argue that the industry of sexually exploiting
> children is expanding, made easier through videos, computer links and
> cheap travel to countries where poor children can be bought with
> relative impunity. The police now suspect that Dutroux may have
> profited from selling both children and child pornography.
>
> The parents of the dead girls are also demanding access to police files
> and explanations of how the police could overlook important leads, like
> the fact that Dutroux, his wife and three children were apparently
> living on unemployment checks, yet he owned at least six houses and as
> many cars.
>
> Several European countries, including France and Germany, have hardened
> their sentences for child abusers in recent years, while some,
> including the Netherlands, insist on supervision and counseling after a
> convict's release and in some cases resort to chemical "castration,"
> administering hormones to inhibit the abuser's libido.
>
> In Belgium, however, laws are more lenient. Dutroux was sentenced in
> 1989 to 13 years in prison on multiple counts of rape and child abuse.
> But he was released after three years for good behavior, even though
> his own mother warned of the risks of recidivism.
>
> Belgians are also venting their anger against what they see as police
> bungling. Belgian newspapers today published leaked police documents
> showing that the police had been receiving tipoffs from an informer
> since 1993, warning that Dutroux was "building cells" to hold kidnapped
> children.
>
> The police this year made two visits to the house where the two girls
> were held captive and said they believed Dutroux when he said the
> voices they heard were those of his own children, the documents said.
>
> In the grave in the Dutroux backyard, the police also found the body of
> Bernard Weinstein, an associate of Dutroux's. Dutroux told the police
> that he killed Weinstein in a rage because he had given Weinstein money
> to feed the two 8-year-old prisoners while he served a brief sentence
> in jail. Dutroux said that the girls died of starvation.
>
> Beside Dutroux, three other adults, including his second wife, Michelle
> Martin, have been arrested as accomplices in the abduction and illegal
> imprisonment of children.
>
> The police are now hunting for the two teen-agers, whom Dutroux said he
> and an associate kidnapped last year in the coastal resort of Ostend.
> Belgium's attorney general said Wednesday that there was reason to
> believe that they might be alive and in the hands of a prostitution
> ring elsewhere in Europe. He said that the police were working through
> Interpol and through authorities in nearby countries, including the
> Czech Republic and Germany.
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