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A Belgian man who went on a killing spree in a children’s nursery while dressed as the Joker from the Batman films practised stabbing a human silhouette at home in the run-up to the attacks, prosecutors have alleged.

Kim De Gelder, 24, has not denied the 2009 killings. His trial, which opened in Ghent on Friday, will centre on whether he was insane.

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After De Gelder’s arrest, police raided his apartment, where they found a wooden fibre board daubed with a human silhouette covered with stab marks that he made while training for his attacks, it is alleged.

As prosecutors read out a 54-page indictment, De Gelder grinned when he was described as a “serial killer” who was “unscrupulous, self-centred, manipulative, arrogant and sadistic”.

De Gelder attacked a daycare in Dendermonde on Jan. 23, 2009, after dying his hair red and painting his face white with black around his eyes, in imitation of the Joker character in the Batman film The Dark Knight.