A Liège man has been found guilty of stabbing his own children to death on Wednesday, in an act the accused himself described as "monstrous" ahead of the jury's deliberations.
The jury's verdict came after a weeks' worth of hearings in the trial of 39-year-old Eddy Michel, found guilty of the premeditated murder his own children, Thimothé and Jules, aged 4 and 6 years old respectively.
Michel killed both of his children on September 30, 2017, stabbing them multiple times with different tools in an act he described as "atrocious and indescribable," and which he committed out of frustration after separating from his partner, Le Soir reports.
Ahead of the jury's deliberation, which lasted over three hours, Michel addressed the court, saying he would not explain his actions nor ask to be forgiven for his "unforgivable actions."
Throughout the trial, the accused said that, on the day of the murder, his partner dropped off their children at his home.
"I called my parents, then I grabbed scissors, a disc grinder and a shear. I cannot explain it all, I only have flashes," he told the court in a previous hearing, adding that "he knew what he had done to his children," but that "he was not himself."
"I am not going to try to explain the unexplainable," Michel said on Wednesday, describing his actions as "mad," "atrocious" and "indescribable."
"I do not ask you to forgive me (...) I will never forgive myself," he continued. "There is only one person responsible, only one person to blame for this monstrous acts: myself, and I never wanted this."
During the trial, Michel confessed to the murder but said that it had not been premeditated and that he did not fully remember all of his actions on that day, according to additional reports in the Francophone outlet.
While the defence upheld that Michel did not plan his actions, the jury concluded that Michel's actions, —such calling his parents and gathering the materials used in the murder— were at odds with the loss of control he says overtook him on that day.
The prosecution, arguing that Michel had seen his revenge as more important than his children's lives, according to L'avenir, requested the penalty of life imprisonment for Michel.
Gabriela Galindo
The Brussels Times
