PEDOPHILE SENTENCED

Police investigating Belgium's most notorious pedophile murder case traced a collection of childpornography to a Florida man who was arrested on in 2000 on charges of operating an online childpornography site. Wayne Camolli was arrested on child pornography charges after customs and otherfederal agents obtained a warrant to search his home and seized a computer and numerousvideocassette tapes. The home was filled with so much rotting garbage, trash and cat feces that theagents had to borrow oxygen masks and hazardous materials suits from the county fire department tocarry out the search. Acting on information from the Belgians, US investigators e-mailed Camolliand were given access to an online bulletin board allegedly run from Camolli's home computer andcontaining a large amount of child pornography. According to Reuters, the child porn that theBelgians traced to Florida was seized from Felix DeConinck, a suspect in the kidnapping andmolestation of a 14-year-old girl. DeConinck in turn had links to Marc Dutroux, a convicted childrapist who is awaiting trial on charges of abducting, raping, torturing and murdering four younggirls in Belgium in 1996. Two other victims were found drugged and abused but still alive in amakeshift dungeon in one of several houses he owned. US officials could not elaborate on theconnection between DeConinck and Dutroux, but said they were part of the same “childpornography, molestation and murder investigation” in Belgium.

Dutroux, 47, went on trial March 1, 2004, on the charges of kidnapping and raping the six girlsand killing four of them in a case that traumatized Belgium and discredited its police andjudiciary. Local media have dubbed the trial of Dutroux, the country's trial of the century. Theformer electrician kept the girls in cells in his basement. He has admitted abducting and confiningthem in the mid-1990's, but denied killing them. He was sentenced to the maximum sentence, lifeimprisonment. His ex-wife, Michelle Martin, was sentenced to 30 years for her role int he girls'kidnappings and deaths.

(Belgium)