Fresh Belgian protests against parole for Dutroux accomplice

Hundreds of people staged fresh protests Sunday against a decision allowing the ex-wife and accomplice of notorious paedophile serial killer Marc Dutroux to be paroled into a convent.

Three separate protest marches drew a few hundred people in the southern-central Belgian village of Malonne where nuns have agreed to house Michelle Martin, pending a state appeal.

Last week a Belgian court decided to free Martin, who has served 16 years of her 30-year sentence for her involvement in the kidnap, rape and deaths of two young girl victims of Dutroux in the 1990s.

Bearing photos of victims and banners that read “30 years is 30 years” and “The demon is out of prison”, demonstrators on Sunday gathered in a street below the convent whose access was blocked by police.

Police used tear gas to stop protestors clearing a police barrier during a second march, which took place around midday, but a bigger protest that drew around 250 people later Sunday was peaceful, news agency Belga reported.

Jean-Denis Lejeune, the father of one of Dutroux’s victims, called for a further protest in Brussels on August 19 to “reform justice”.

On Friday around 400 people converged on the convent.

Paedophile Dutroux was jailed for life in June 2004 for the kidnap and rape in the 1990s of six young and teenage girls, and the murder of the four of them who died.

Martin was herself convicted in 2004 for helping Dutroux hold his victims prisoner, and of complicity in the deaths of two of the girls, found starved to death in a locked cellar.

Under last week’s parole ruling, former primary school teacher Martin, now 52, was ordered to “keep her distance” from relatives of victims.

Belgium’s top appeal court has another 25 days to consider the appeal.