A court in Arlon, Belgium, sentenced his ex-wife Michelle Martin to 30 years in prison for kidnapping and rape.

Co-accused Michel Lelievre got 25 years for kidnapping and drug-dealing. Michel Nihoul was jailed for five years for drug-dealing and counts of fraud.

This marks the end of a case which became the scourge of the Belgian establishment and notorious around the world.

Grisly crimes

Dutroux was found guilty last week of leading a gang that kidnapped and raped six girls in the mid-1990s, leading to the deaths of four of them.

Prosecutors had called for 30-year jail terms for Martin and Lelievre, and at least 10 years for Nihoul, a businessman.

Nihoul was acquitted of kidnapping, but convicted of smuggling drugs and people into Belgium.

The grisly crimes came to light in the summer of 1996. Two young girls, Sabine Dardenne and Laetitia Delhez, aged 12 and 14 respectively were found at one of Dutroux's houses on 15 August 1996.

They had been abducted and kept in a purpose-built dungeon in Dutroux's basement and repeatedly raped.

A couple of days later the bodies of two eight-year-olds, Melissa Russo and Julie Lejeune, were found in the garden of another property belonging to Dutroux.

They had been repeatedly raped before dying of starvation, post-mortem reports showed.

The bodies of An Marchal, 17, and Eefje Lambrecks, 19, were found in 1996 in the garden of a house in the suburbs of the city of Charleroi owned by Dutroux.

Post-mortem reports showed they had been raped and beaten before being drugged and buried alive.