genderberg.com - Victim of Belgian paedophile Dutroux tells her story

October 28, 2004 12:00am
Source: Agence France-Presse

Agence France-Presse English Wire: BRUSSELS, Oct 27 (AFP) - A young woman, abducted when she was 12 by the Belgian paedophile, rapist and murderer Marc Dutroux, recounts her ordeal in a book to appear Thursday, the day of her 21st birthday, her Parisian publishers said.

Sabine Dardenne was 12 when she was seized by Dutroux on May 28, 1996 in western Belgium as she cycled to school. In August of that year she was discovered hidden in a cellar in a house owned by Dutroux in the south of the country, with another young girl, aged 15.

Police later found the bodies of four other young girls in houses belonging to Dutroux.

"If I have had the courage to relive this ordeal, it is above all so that some judge should not again free paedeophiles halfway through their jail terms and with no kind of preacution," she writes.

"I needed this account so people should stop looking at me strangely."

Sabine's strength of character made a deep impression on Belgian public opinion when she gave evidence at Dutroux's trial.

In June Dutroux was given a life sentence after the most publicised trial in Belgian history.

In the 1980s he carried out several rapes and kidnappings and in 1989 was given a 13 and half year prison term, only to be granted early release.

Sabine's book will be published in 30 countries.

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