BRUSSELS The Belgian public prosecutor investigating the country's paedophile scandal and the murder of a former Socialist Party patriarch has committed suicide, Belgian media reported on Wednesday. Belgian television and radio said Hubert Massa, 54, shot himself on Tuesday. Massa was in charge of investigations into the deaths of four young girls seized by convicted paedophile Marc Dutroux and the Mafia-style murder in 1991 of the French-speaking Socialist Party leader Andre Cools. The inquiry into cools' murder uncovered a bribes-for- contracts scandal which triggered the resignation in 1995 of the then NATO secretary general, Belgium's former deputy prime minister Willy Claes. Massa's colleagues could offer no motive for his suicide, according to media reports.

(Reuter)