BRUSSELS (AP) - The ex-wife of a notorious pedophile who aided her husband's horrific abuse and murder of young girls - and who let two children starve to death while her husband was in jail - was approved Tuesday for early release from prison, infuriating the victims' parents and reopening a dark chapter in Belgian history.
Michelle Martin, who is now 52, received a 30-year prison term in 2004 for not freeing girls her then-husband Marc Dutroux held captive behind a secret door in their decrepit, dirty basement in Marcinelle, 40 miles south of Brussels.
Dutroux, 55, is serving a life term for kidnapping, torturing and abusing six girls in 1995 and 1996, and murdering four of them.
During those years, Dutroux also spent four months in jail for theft, leaving it to his wife to feed Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, a pair of friends imprisoned in the basement. Martin let the girls starve to death. They were 8 years old.
The case is one of the most sensational in recent Belgian history. Police failed to find the girls when they went to the house to investigate, even though they heard voices. And when the Supreme Court removed the investigating magistrate from the case for compromising his impartiality by attending a dinner organized by victims' parents, public anger exploded.
Some 300,000 people took to the streets in protest. The government teetered on the brink of collapse, prompting King Albert to call on it to reform the judiciary.