Wife and accomplice of pedophile and murderer to enter convent

Belgique: l'ex-femme de Marc Dutroux va quitter la prison pour entrer au couvent - RTBF Societe

Michelle Martin, the ex-wife and accomplice of the Belgian pedophile murdered, Marc Dutroux, will be released after serving more than half of her sentence of 30 years imprisonment, in order to enter a convent in Belgium and provided she "keeps distance" from the victims' families.

The Parole Court in Mons (TAP), which looked for the fifth time since 2007 on the application for parole of Michelle Martin, authorized her on Tuesday to stay in the convent of the Sisters of the Poor Clares Malonne near Namur in the south, provided they "keeps distance" from the victims' families.

Michelle Martin will not get out of jail immediately. The Prosecutor General shall have 24 hours to lodge an appeal and the defense a period of 15 days.

Sister Christine, abbess of the Poor Clares of Malonne, confirmed that her institution was ready to welcome the former wife of Marc Dutroux. "It was a challenge for us, we were upset by the horrible suffering of the victims and their families" she says in a statement.

" How to bring these two realities at once? (...) Our heart of women was troubled. We chose to welcome both these suffering, one with the other, "she added.

Incarcerated since her arrest in 1996, Michelle Martin, 52, has served more than half of 30 years imprisonment to which she was sentenced in 2004.

A former teacher, she was convicted of having kidnapped a number of young victims of Marc Dutroux and to have starved to death Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, aged eight years, immured in a dungeon built his house in Marcinelle, near Charleroi.

His lawyer, Thierry Moreau, acted on RTL-TVI that it " this is not the woman who returned to prison in 1996."

"Her guilt will to continue into the grave, the only thing she can try to do is try to redeem herself, "he added.

”Irreducible sentences"
The families of the victims denounced the court ruling. "Victims' rights are violated", accused one of their lawyers, Georges-Henri Beauthier.

"It's the fox that will be thrown into a chicken coop , "said Jean-Denis Lejeune, Julie's father (Julie was one of the victims), who believes that Michelle Martin was" responsible for the deaths of four children . " " I do not accept forgiveness and reintegration , "he said. In May 2011, a petition for early release had been accepted by the TAP Mons.

As part of his rehabilitation program, the former wife of Marc Dutroux, who says he became very religious, had proposed to reside in a convent in France. But the French Ministry of Justice had blocked this option, saying it risked creating a disturbance of public order.


On Tuesday came the reactions of the political world. The President of the Reform Movement Charles Michel said it was " urgent "to" revive the struggle "for the establishment of" mandatory sentencing".

Marc Dutroux was sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping, false imprisonment and rape, between June 1995 and August 1996 of six girls and adolescents, as well as the deaths of four of them.

The community of old and 
a distorted image of St Clare which they now worship.
they could not be more insensitive


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