Our reporter Sabine Vermeiren, herself a mother of four, is sitting in the assize room: “Every mother felt her heart breaking. But Raul’s sat there unmoved.”

Raul’s (9) mother: what would she actually think? What goes through her mind when she is shown – wall-sized – the photo of her child, half decomposed in a sports bag? Our reporter Sabine Vermeiren, herself a mother of four children, watched a full day of the trial at accused Ioana-Maria Micu (33). But was she looking at a mother? Or a monster? “She sits there impassively, as if she were watching an exciting series on Netflix.”

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