After eight years of waiting, Belgians are still unsure of justice
Sitting just a few rows in front of the 47-year-old were the parents of two of his victims.
They tried to look passive as they were filmed, but one mother could not help the tears flowing down her face.
Sabine Dardenne, now 20, who was found alive in August 1996 in the cellar of the red-bricked house in Charleroi where she was chained up by the neck for 10 weeks along with Laetitia Delhez, then 14, is expected to be one of 500 witnesses at the trial over the coming months.
The court will hear excerpts from the diary she kept at the time, including a system of crosses she used to mark each time he raped her.
"I have been waiting eight years for this. I want to look him in the eyes and show him that despite everything he made me suffer, I did not go mad," she said last week.
Few Belgians doubt Dutroux's guilt. What they are not so sure of is who else is implicated, or whether their whole legal system is corrupt.
Many believe that Dutroux and co-defendant Michel Nihoul, a 62-year-old Brussels lawyer, Nihoul are part of a paedophile network with a rich and powerful membership. There have been claims that judges, politicians and policemen were involved in the abuse and murder of children.
The authorities say this is untrue and they have wasted too much time following up on such claims.
There have also been claims that investigators were dismissed when they were getting too close to the truth and that the long time lapse was an effort to ensure the trail went cold.
Parents of Dutroux's victims ask how a petty thief and convicted rapist who qualified for unemployment assistance, managed to own seven houses.
Dutroux himself has constantly insisted that he was not acting alone.
Hijacking the opening day of his trial yesterday, he issued a statement over the weekend saying he was part of a network.
In a letter to the VTM television station, Dutroux said he was part of a criminal network with tentacles in Belgian law enforcement.
He called co-defendant Nihoul an underworld lynchpin. Those closest to many of the victims believe him and believe that their police and legal system is a shambles whose incompetence has cost lives.
The parents of Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, who were eight when they were taken on June 24, 1995 and whose bodies were found in a backyard grave, are refusing to attend the trial. Melissa's father Gino said he believed it would be absurd for him to take part. "It's going to be a big circus," he said.
Paul Marchal, father of victim An Marchal, will give evidence. "It's the last thing I can do for my daughter," he said. It has never been established how she died.
A recent newspaper poll showed 88% believe the trial will not get to the bottom of the affair while 68% say Dutroux was protected by politicians.
