BELGIAN television showed pictures yesterday of the secret cell in a house owned by convicted child rapist Marc Dutroux where two girls starved to death and from which two others were rescued.
A heavy, soundproofed steel and concrete door set in the wall in the basement and disguised as shelves hid the tiny one by three metre dungeon in the Marcinelle suburb of Charleroi.
The door was hung on a complicated system of overhead steel sliding rails and counterbalances. It took two people to pull it open.
Inside was a rusty steelmesh door to the cage which had a bare concrete floor and ceiling and blank, yellow painted walls.
Eight year olds Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, kidnapped by Dutroux's gang in June 1995, were held there for several months. They died of starvation earlier this year. Their bodies were found on August 17th in the garden of another house owned by Dutroux at Sars La Buisierre, south west of Charleroi.
Sabine Dardenne (12), was held in the Marcinelle dungeon for 2 1/2 months. Laetitia Delhez (14), was imprisoned there for six days.
Both girls were rescued on August 15th. They had been sexually and mentally abused.
Two other girls, Eefje Lamb reeks and An Marchal, kidnapped by Dutroux in August 1995, were found dead on September 3rd this year at another Charleroi house that was home to Dutroux accomplice Bernard Weinstein.
Dutroux admits killing Weinstein, whom he accuses of murdering Eefje and An.