POLICE searching a property owned by Marc Dutroux, chief suspect in Belgium's child sex abuse and murder scandal, yesterday found the decomposing bodies of two young adults. Belgian television reported that the remains were those of Eefje Lambrecks and An Marechal, whom Dutroux told police he had kidnapped last year.
"They have found two bodies in an advanced state of decomposition," a medical source working at the site said.
Ms Lambrecks, aged 19, was kidnapped along with her friend Ms Marechal (17) on August 22nd, 1995, near Ostende.
The discovery of the two corpses came after a week of searching at a dilapidated wooden chalet that had previously been occupied by Dutroux accomplice Bernard Weinstein.
Police earlier said they had found what appeared to be human remains without giving any further details.
"We discovered bones, probably of a human nature," Gendarmerie spokesman Maj Jean-Marie Boudin told reporters outside the house in the Charleroi suburb of Jumet, formerly occupied by Weinstein.
Several other Belgian girls have gone missing in recent years. Their files are all now pooled in Neufchateau, nerve centre of an international paedophile hunt.
An eight-year-old Zairean girl who went missing in Liege on Monday was found safe yesterday. She had run away.
Police have been digging around the Jumet house, one of six owned by Dutroux in or near Charleroi, for the past week. The bones were found underneath a shed in the garden.
Public prosecutor Mr Michel Bourlet, leading the hunt for a paedophile sex gang and its victims, visited the site, as did police pathologist Mr Jean-Pol Beauthiez.
Maj Boudin said searches were suspended from the moment the bones were found. They would resume later.
The find follows discovery of the bodies of two eight-year-old children and that of Weinstein on August 17th at a house owned by Dutroux south of Charleroi.
Dutroux said the two girls, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo starved to death earlier this year, some nine months after being abducted.
Two other girls, Laetitia Delhez and Sabine Dardenne, were rescued from another of Dutroux's houses 13 days ago. Both had been sexually abused.
No remains had been found previously at the house in Jumet.
The discovery of the paedophile web has horrified Belgium, prompted the government to tighten rules on early release of sex offenders and triggered calls for a global war against the child sex trade.
The fact that Dutroux was released early from a 13-year sentence for child rape, and that he has fathered three children by his two wives, has bewildered adults and children alike.
The hunt for missing girls has taken on international dimensions. Belgian police have visited Slovakia and the Czech Republic and have contacted colleagues in Austria and Germany.
Authorities in Bratislava suspect Dutroux of the murder of a Slovak woman and the planned kidnapping of at least one other.
Nine people are now under arrest in the Belgian affair, including Dutroux's second wife Michelle Martin.
Police have found trench-like cells allegedly for holding kidnapped children in one of Dutroux's houses and seized more than 300 paedophile porn video tapes - some featuring Dutroux himself - plus magazines, children's clothing and a gun.