The double life of Veronique

The stage has been set for a sensational murder trial in the French city of Tours following a senior judge's ruling in the case of a woman accused of smothering her two newborn children and storing their bodies in the family freezer.

In proceedings expected to begin later this year, Veronique Courjault, 39, will face an additional charge of killing a third child at birth and disposing of the corpse on a bonfire. The court will hear how she succeeded in concealing her pregnancies from her husband, Jean-Louis, who was initially suspected of complicity in the killings but was cleared by the same judge last month.

The macabre case has fascinated and repelled the French public in equal measure since July 2006, when a distraught Jean-Louis Courjault called local police to the family's apartment in Seoul, where he was employed by a South Korean car company. He told them he had discovered the tiny bodies wrapped in plastic and encased in ice as he looked for some mackerel in the freezer, insisting he had no idea how the infants got there.

Seemingly concerned about detaining a prominent foreign businessman, police subsequently allowed Jean-Louis to join his wife and their two children who were then on their summer vacation in France. They never returned to Seoul, despite intense diplomatic pressure from the Korean authorities for them to submit to questioning.

With the French media now feasting on what had become known as "l'affaire des bebes congeles" the Korean authorities announced that DNA tests on toothbrushes, combs and other items removed from the Courjaults' apartment had established that they were the parents of the babies, which were found to have been born alive within a few minutes of each other.

After a second analysis by French forensic experts on the DNA material provided by the Koreans established beyond doubt that the Courjaults were the birth parents - something they had strenuously denied to their lawyer just days earlier - a judicial investigation was opened.

Under interrogation, Veronique confessed to killing the babies shortly after giving birth alone in the Seoul apartment: she subsequently admitted to murdering an infant she had borne in France several years earlier. She also revealed she had transported the 'freezer babies' in a refrigerated drinks container from the family's home in Seoul to the flat where Jean-Louis discovered them.

According to police sources, from the start Veronique was adamant that her husband, whose job entailed frequent foreign travel, had never suspected anything, even though they had a normal married relationship. Her women friends in Seoul, with whom she regularly attended yoga classes, never noticed any signs of her pregnancy, though as it advanced, she took to hiding her bump under loose flowing dresses. The babies had arrived while her other children were at the local French lycee: by the time they got home, she had removed all trace of the births.

A police officer who was present during the questioning got the impression Veronique was relieved her secret was finally out: she and her husband later fell into each other's arms in floods of tears. Psychologists who examined Veronique believe she suffered from a condition that leads some women to reject the reality of their pregnancy.

Although her husband and close relatives describe her as a loving and caring mother to the couple's two other children, she said none of the babies that she had killed had been wanted. She found it harder to explain why she had kept possession of the 'freezer babies' after their death: one specialist in cases of infanticide thought it could have been an unconscious desire to retain some maternal link with them.

In October 2006, the investigating magistrate handling the case ordered Veronique to be held in preventive custody, where she has remained ever since: Jean-Louis is allowed occasional visits. ·