Arlon (Belgium), March 1 (Reuters): Belgium’s trial of the century finally opened today, with a convicted child rapist facing charges of kidnapping and raping six girls and killing four of them in a gruesome case that traumatised the nation.

“My name is Marc Dutroux,” the accused said calmly from inside the purpose-built bullet-proof glass dock when asked his identity by presiding judge Stephane Goux.

Dutroux and three suspected accomplices, including his ex-wife, were driven in an armoured vehicle to the courthouse in this southeastern town to stand trial on a string of charges based on events in the mid-1990s.

The 47-year-old former electrician, who kept the girls locked up in makeshift cells in the basement of his house, has admitted abducting and confining the children but denied killing them. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

In his only other answers in court, he said he had no job and gave his address as Arlon prison. Dutroux, wearing a dark suit and tie, refused to be photographed on entering the courtroom with his ex-wife, Michelle Martin, his main accused accomplice, Michel Lelievre, and a businessman, Michel Nihoul.

In a statement broadcast by Belgian television yesterday, Dutroux insisted he had been a mere cog in a wider paedophile network, providing fresh ammunition for conspiracy theories, for which prosecutors say they have so far found no factual basis.