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