Belgian guilty of girls' murder

Abdellah Ait Oud appeared to faint at the verdict

A Belgian man has been convicted in the city of Liege of abducting, raping and murdering two schoolgirls in a case that shocked the country.

Abdellah Ait Oud, 40, had denied killing Nathalie Mahy, 10, and her stepsister, Stacy Lemmens, seven, in June 2006.

Oud faces life imprisonment when sentenced on Wednesday.

The case evoked painful memories of the multiple murders by paedophile Marc Dutroux a decade earlier.

DNA evidence

Police had to carry Oud away from court after the verdict was read out.

The Moroccan-born welder shouted: "I'm innocent, I'm innocent damn it, I didn't do anything."

Nathalie (L) and Stacy went missing from a festival in Liege

The jury found him guilty after weighing forensic and circumstantial evidence.

Prosecutors said DNA samples taken from hair found on Oud's clothes matched those from Stacy.

Oud, who had previously served a sentence for sex offences, had turned himself in.

The girls went missing during a festival in Liege in June 2006 and their bodies were found three weeks later in a drainage system by a railway line.

Nathalie's father, Didier Mahy, said: "Our daughters have been avenged. I'm relieved. I'm now going to move on to other things."

The case has revived memories of the murderous activities of Dutroux in the 1990s, two of whose victims also came from Liege.

In 2004, Dutroux was found guilty of leading a gang that kidnapped and raped six girls in the mid-1990s, leading to the deaths of four of them.