The Eurocrats and Marc Dutroux II: a Judge, a King, a Psychopath and His Lover
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Menu ■ About ■ An Introduction to this Blog ■ Article Series ■ Recommended Books ■ TRANSLATE INFRAKSHUN Search for: The Eurocrats and Marc Dutroux II: A Judge, A King, a Psychopath and his Lover “The truth is that those journalists who tell the story complain that they have been harassed, sacked, threatened and many say they have been forced to stop reporting on this issue to continue working.’ As one senior Belgian said to me citing these examples ‘You must not underestimate how bad Belgian justice is.’” – BBC Journalist, Olenka Frenkiel On June 17, 2004, Marc Dutroux, a long-standing criminal and low-level police informant, was given a life sentence for supposedly “leading a gang” that kidnapped and raped six girls in the mid-1990s, resulting in the deaths of four. His links to a sex and crime ring led to other arrests including his wife Michelle Martin an elementary school teacher who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for kidnapping and rape (though she has since been paroled after serving 16 years). Co-accused Michel Lelièvre a petty thief and drug addict received 25 years for kidnapping and drug-dealing. Jean Michel Nihoul however, known for his penchant for organising orgies at a local chateau with high society links and a long history of assorted criminality, was jailed for only five years for drug-dealing and several counts of fraud. His lover, Marleen De Cockere was also arrested and charged with conspiracy. After an enormous public out-cry over the murders, Belgium’s Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene finally began to make the right noises. All of a sudden, the government professed its dedication to the cause of reform in the justice and police systems, particularly regarding parole criteria for those convicted of child sex offences after decades of denial and disinterest. The Royalty, most notably King Albert, conveniently jumped on the bandwagon and vocally called for further immediate reforms. However, in 2001 the publication of The Paedophile Dossier – the Scandal of the Dutroux Case [1] gave the Brussels palace virtual apoplexy regarding what they viewed as “grotesque” deformations against the unblemished character of the king. The next Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, described it as “an unacceptable assault on the dignity of our nation and its people.” [2] Marc Dutroux The book suggested that Albert attended sex parties in the 1970s and 1980s where children were routinely abused. The Luxembourg-based investigative journalist Jean Nicolas, who co-authored the book, said he made no accusations against King Albert, but merely published legal documents written by a Belgian judge. However, the palace grievances were upheld in the Belgian courts and a formal denial was to be included in all future copies. Nevertheless, Albert had a record that was not the cleanest public image for a King, though sadly common place for historical royalty who remain above the law. In the 1970s, then still the Crown Prince, he was implicated in a sex affair involving the bribery of Saudi officials. The Belgian government also sought to have their own addendum regarding the handling of the affair but the judge reminded them that this was political issue, thus did not come under the court’s jurisdiction (which is bizarre in itself). However, at this late stage it was a case of too little far too late, especially when the rumours of institutionalised sexual abuse and a wider network of child rape had still not been satisfactorily investigated. The conclusion of Dutroux’s eight year trial was preceeded by numerous postponements, delays and suspicious stone-walling. There was also evidence of extraordinary negligence from the police and government officials involved in the investigation, several police officers having been detained and questioned over the scandal. Resignations and dismissals followed, as well as one of the largest peacetime demonstrations ever seen by the Belgian public, furious at what they considered to be, at best, ineptitude and at worst, a cover-up which extended right to the heart of Belgian royalty. The reason that the trial was said to have taken so long was due to the persistent rumours that a child sex ring was in operation and the investigations that followed. In fact, the exact opposite was the case. No such investigations took place and the length of the trial was largely due to the obstructions and delays from police and justice officials. In the final month, Dutroux’s lawyer “sensationally called for the suspension of the trial to give investigators time to confirm the existence of such a child sex ring.” [3] After a few days, the request was rejected by the judge and the verdict was handed down on the June 17, 2004. Not one week after the sentencing of Dutroux a French forestry worker, Michel Fourniret, confessed to killing six girls in Belgium and France from 1987 to 2001, suggesting yet more evidence of police ineptitude or purposeful apathy regarding child abduction. [4] Only several months after the arrest of Dutroux was yet another child molester found after the discovery of the body of Loubna Benaissa, who was 9 when she disappeared in August 1992. She was found in a trunk in the basement of one Patrick Derochette who was charged with murder along with three members of his family. [5] Just what was going on in the heart of Belgium? Marc Dutroux – from petty criminal to procurer of children Having settled with his family in the Belgian province of Charleroi and unable to obtain work, Marc Dutroux, gradually sank into petty crime making a mediocre living from trading stolen cars in Poland and Slovakia. He graduated to selling young girls into prostitution throughout Europe beginning in the late eighties and early nineties. As he began to explore and exercise his criminal tendencies, Dutroux was arrested in 1989 for the rape and abuse of five young girls. Nevertheless, his luck was in and as a product of Belgium’s curious laws which were more than flexible regarding child abuse at the time, he and many convicted paedophiles were able to walk free by 1992. The law only tightened up when the full scale of the death and abuse came to light upon his arrest in 1996. By then, many girls had gone missing in the vicinity of Dutroux’s two homes. The magnitude of the “incompetence” of police investigation into the crimes slowly became known over the seven year period from his arrest to his sentence. These included warnings to the police from Dutroux’s own mother regarding possible kidnapping of girls in one of her son’s houses, to overlooking basic police investigative protocol by ignoring informants’ information which later proved accurate and which led to the loss of vital clues. Finally, an eyewitness managed to record the number plate of a suspicious car in the area where the girls went missing and Marc Dutroux was arrested on August 15 1996 and subsequently charged with the murder of four girls. Julie LeJeune and Melissa Russo on the cover of Time Magazine Two girls, Laetitia Delhez, aged 12, and Sabine Dardenne, aged 14 were found alive but the others were not so lucky. Tales of torture, rape, pornographic filming and a general litany of sexual abuse took place in a secret dungeon in the basement of one of Dutroux’s houses. Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo were two other eight year old victims who were plucked off the street, in June of 1995 drugged, repeatedly raped and subsequently allowed to starve to death. According to Dutroux, his accomplice in the kidnappings, Bernard Weinstein forgot to feed the children while he was incarcerated for another crime involving car theft. He later confessed to killing Weinstein in a fit of rage by drugging and burying him alive next to the bodies of Russo and Lejeune. The police refused to hunt for the girls at the time even though Dutroux was known as a prime suspect. Nor did they search Dutroux’s house for five months. When a search was finally organized, they found nothing, despite reports of children’s voices in the cellar. Further known victims were An Marchal, aged 19, and Eefje Lambreks, aged 17, who were found at another house owned by Dutroux, several weeks after the discovery of Russo and Lejeune. Dutroux and accomplice Michel Lelievre admitted kidnapping two other girls who had gone missing at a Belgian resort in Ostend one year earlier. The general resistance and clear obstruction of the authorities extended over several years until the Belgian public were convinced that a massive operation had been in place to protect politicians and officials in high places who had been connected to the child sexual abuse ring. They also believed that the government, police and courts were all involved in the cover-up. Dutroux was dubbed a “perfect psychopath.” He revelled in the media circus and the audience attention in court and frequently displayed self-pity ploys and almost comical delusions of grandeur so typical of psychopathy. Dutroux stated he was not a paedophile as commonly believed and experts agreed with him: ‘The age of the victims did not seem to arouse in him any given effect or to play a particular role, beyond allowing him to kidnap them, to manipulate them, to confine them,’ said the report. What Dutroux relished was total power over people … Dutroux himself cited the injustice of being denied ice creams at the beach as evidence of emotional privation …” [6] This gave credence to his insistence that he was not in it for reasons of paedophilia but rather as a psychopathic opportunist, seeking power over others and the resulting gratification and kudos that went with it.