Belgian police find bodies of missing girls in storm drain

The bodies of Belgium's two missing schoolgirls were recovered from near a railway line yesterday, ending an 18-day search for the stepsisters who vanished from a street party.

Last seen in the early hours of 10 June, the remains of Stacy Lemmens, seven, and her stepsister Nathalie Mahy, 10, were found in a storm drain about half a mile from the bar from which they disappeared.

Police had searched the area before but had failed to find the corpses because of dense undergrowth. Yesterday they went back with heavier equipment, making the first of their two discoveries at about 11am.

Just after 4pm the second body, that of Nathalie, was removed from the railway line in a blacked-out van and taken for examination.

Police said the bodies had been there for several days and were in the same state of decomposition, suggesting that the girls died soon after they went missing. One body was said to show signs of violence.

The fate of Stacy and Nathalie reawakened memories of the crimes of the notorious child-killer Marc Dutroux, who abducted two of his young victims from Liège in 1995. They starved to death in the basement of his house in Marcinelle while Dutroux was in prison for another offence.

Until yesterday, the parents of Stacy and Nathalie had clung to the hope they were still alive, and pictures of the girls had been distributed across the continent.

Belgium's Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, said: "Priority will be given to uncovering the culprit, or culprits, in this terrible double murder. I can assure you that none of them will get away with this. In all our hearts there is a feeling of repugnance, of sorrow and powerlessness. We cannot comprehend what motivates these people."

Elio Di Rupo, premier of the French-speaking Wallonia region, said the discovery marked "a new black day for Belgium".

Crown Prince Philippe, heir to the Belgian throne, said he was scaling back a trade visit to Moscow as a sign of respect. "As parents ourselves we want to express our feelings with the parents," he said.

A convicted child rapist, Abdullah Aid Oud, aged 38, has been charged with the girls' kidnapping and has been held by police since handing himself in on 13 June, when he was identified publicly as a suspect. He was seen at the Aux Armuriers bar where the two girls were last seen alive and is the boyfriend of one of the waitresses there.

Mr Aid Oud denies any involvement in their disappearance, and the public prosecutor for Liège said the discoveries had "not produced new elements linked to the person in custody".

But the prosecutor said there were no other suspects and the results of forensic tests were not yet known. It was confirmed that the two girls had been murdered but there was no further detail on the cause of death or whether they had been sexually assaulted.

The discovery of the bodies was from routine police work rather than as a result of questioning the main suspect, the authorities said.

If examination of the bodies links Mr Aid Oud to the murders, the Belgian judicial authorities will face questions about why he was released from prison last December, despite his record.

Told of the discovery, Christiane Granziero, the mother of Stacy, was taken ill and had to be admitted to hospital.

Residents began laying flowers last night near the spot where the girls' bodies had been discovered.