Survivor Faces Dutroux in Belgian Court

Belgium's most hated man, the convicted child rapist Marc Dutroux, came face to face with one of his two surviving victims yesterday as the country's "trial of the century" reached one of its most riveting - and haunting - moments.

Sabine Dardenne, aged 12 when she was kidnapped and sexually abused for 80 nightmarish days in Dutroux's hidden dungeon, testified to a silent courtroom just feet away from the former electrician, who was under guard behind bullet-proof glass.

Ms Dardenne, now 20, regained her composure after an emotional start, asking the defendant in a steady, challenging voice: "Why did you not liquidate me?"

Dutroux, 47, facing a life sentence for the kidnapping and rape of six girls and the murder of two of them, showed some contrition but insisted he never intended to kill her.

"I acknowledge my mistakes," he told the district court in Arlon, southern Ardennes. "I acknowledge that I abused her. But for me there was never any question of liquidating her."

Ms Dardenne, who spoke for an hour, described how the manipulative Dutroux made her believe he was actually protecting her from a "wicked chief" who wanted to kill her.

Ms Dardenne said Dutroux convinced her that her parents had abandoned her after refusing to pay a ransom.

She said she even thanked him when stepping out of the concealed cell into the arms of a police officer on the day of her rescue. "I was pretty crazy to believe him," she said with a nervous laugh. "He had us on that one."

Ms Dardenne, then a curly-haired girl with a gap-toothed smile, was bundled into Dutroux's van while cycling to school near Tournai on May 28 1996 and was found on August 15 in a cellar along with Laetitia Delhez, who had been held for six days.

Ms Delhez, now 22, will give evidence today. Dutroux is on trial with three other defendants: his ex-wife, Michelle Martin, and two men.

Eight-year-olds Melissa Russo and Julie Lejeune allegedly died of starvation in Dutroux's squalid home near Charleroi while he was serving a prison sentence for a vehicle crime.

It is alleged that two Flemish teenagers, An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks, were also murdered. Dutroux blames his co-defendants for their deaths.

Testimony from the two sur viving victims is seen as crucial to an agonised and unfinished debate over whether the defendant was a "lone predator" or was part of a wider paedophile network, possibly involving leading figures from Belgian politics and society.

That key question and the incompetence and buck-passing during years of bungled investigations have not been resolved in the first seven weeks of the trial, which is being given blanket coverage in the Belgian media.

Significantly, Ms Dardenne said yesterday that Dutroux was the only man she saw throughout her captivity and the only person who abused her.

In hearings last week the court heard the contents of four letters she sent her parents from captivity, but which never reached them.

She described the maltreatment she was subjected to as well as brainwashing and "disgusting" food in what she called "the room of agony".

"I don't think I will ever see you again," the girl wrote in one of them, dated July 1996.

Ms Dardenne told the court that at one point she tried to escape by forcing the cell door open but said Dutroux was so angry when he found out that she never tried again.

In an opening statement when the trial began in March, Dutroux described how he had oral sex with her during her captivity, giving her sweets "to take the taste away".

Yesterday, turning to face him, she asked: "I would like to know, coming from the man who complained that I was pigheaded, why he didn't liquidate me?"

Ms Dardenne also asked Michelle Martin why she as a mother stood by and allowed the abuse to happen. Ms Martin replied she did not expect Ms Dardenne to forgive the unforgivable.

Tension was palpable in the courtroom, and Pol Marchal, father of victim An, was so shaken by Ms Dardenne's testimony that he had to be taken on a stretcher to hospi tal for observation. Lawyers praised Ms Dardenne's courage. Jan Fermon, counsel for Ms Delhez, said: "Two girls who survived hell and live to tell the story show great courage."

In all, more than 400 witnesses are expected to give evidence in the trial, likely to end in June.