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Dutroux, Nihoul and
X-Dossier investigators
(Yes, it's that obvious)
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The good guys
| Michel Bourlet
|
Prosecutor of the king in the small
district of Neufchateau since 1984. After Laetitia
Delhez disappeared in Bertrix, Neufchateau, on August 9,
1996, Bourlet received information about a suspicious
white van, a Renault, that had been driving around
Bertrix at the time of the girl's disappearance. One of
the witnesses also remembered part of the license plate
of the van, which was subsequently traced to Marc
Dutroux. Bourlet put examining magistrate Jean-Marc
Connerotte on the case who, on August 15, ordered the
gendarmerie to arrest Dutroux, his girlfriend Michele
Martin and Michel Lelievre. On August 24, after being
asked if he's going to prosecute all those who appeared
on the hundreds of videos found in the possession of
Dutroux, Bourlet answered: "I will go down to the
bone... if I will be allowed." Bourlet and
Connerotte had to be permanently guarded by the Special
Intervention Squadron (Diana Group), because of all the
death threats they received. After Connerotte was
removed from the investigation in October for having
attended a fund raising for parents of missing children
(together with Bourlet), at which Laetitia Delhez was
present (he didn't meet her face to face), Bourlet was
forced to work with newly-promoted examining magistrate
Jacques Langlois, who didn't want to hear anything about
larger networks. This would lead to severe friction
between the two men, which only increased after the
attorney of Michel Nihoul began accusing Bourlet of
manipulating the press. Bourlet remained a top official
in the Dutroux investigation, but without cooperation
from Langlois, the judicial police and the BOB he could
not "go down to the bone" as he had wanted. Present at
meetings of the Obelix Cell, the coordinating meetings
of the Dutroux affair in the first half of 1997,
together with Andre Vandoren, Patrick Duinslaeger,
Jean-Claude Van Espen, Benoit Dejemeppe, Jean Soenen,
Nicole De Rouck, Paule Somers, Jacques Langlois, a
number of gendarme officers, leaders of investigating
teams, judicial police officers and criminal analysts.
X1 largely dominated the agenda of these meetings.
Bourlet's phone was tapped from late 1997 until
somewhere in late 1999 / early 2000, officially because
he was a suspect in leaking information about the
Dutroux affair. However, phone taps continued for almost
two years after it had already been established that
Bourlet was not responsible for that. The same thing
happened to Raymond Drisket, head of the cell-Nihoul,
who had been forced to hand over his investigations of
Nihoul, including all the files of the Dolo, to the
District Attorney's office in Brussels, exactly where
Drisket suspected Nihoul's protectors could be found.
Bourlet was questioned at the Dutroux-Nihoul trial in
the first half of 2004. Here he created a bit of a row
when criticizing the role of gendarme officer Rene
Michaux, who headed the surveillance and house searches
of Dutroux in 1995 and 1996. In May 2004, he said:
"Sabine and Laetitia have spent 48 hours too long in the
cage in Marcinelle. Their suffering could have been two
days shorter. Why? That's what I've been asking myself
in the past eight years." Bourlet went on to
criticize Michaux's integrity and one of the things he
asked was: "Why didn't Michaux find the letters of
Sabine which she had hidden under the carpet?"
Michaux reacted by saying: "I was searching for
Laetitia, not for some letters. I sure wouldn't have
found Laetitia under the carpet." Michaux called
Bourlet a liar and soon was contemplating to sue him for
libel. |
| Jean-Marc Connerotte
|
Appointed examining magistrate of the
Neufchateau district in 1986, and had not accepted
political support to be appointed to this position. Even
though Neufchateau is a very small district, Bourlet and
Connerotte became well known in Belgium in 1994 for not
being allowed to solve the murder on socialist leader
Andre Cools. On August 9, 1996, Laetitia Delhez was
kidnapped in Connerotte's district and is his colleague
Bourlet put him on the case as the examining magistrate.
Connerotte ordered the Gendarmerie to arrest Dutroux,
his girlfriend Michele Martin and Michel Lelievre on
August 12, which was soon followed by him finding the
missing girls Sabine and Laetitia, making him a national
hero. Nihoul was arrested on August 16, initially for
his connection to Michel Lelievre, but later also turned
out to be a close associate of Dutroux. Like many other
investigators, Connerotte became convinced that Nihoul
was the key player in the "Dutroux gang". Regina Louf
(X1), a woman who said she was abused in a pedophile
network which also included Nihoul and Dutroux,
contacted Connerotte on September 4, 1996. Connerotte
appointed his close colleague Patriek De Baets as the
chief interviewer and investigator of X1. Together with
Michel Bourlet and a notary, Connerotte attended a
September 21, 1996 meeting organized to celebrate the
liberation of Sabine and Laetitia and honor other
victims of child abuse
(made sure to pay for the spaghetti he
was given; did not to meet with the girls or their
parents; refused to accept flowers from Laetitia and
Sabine; and the fountain pen the guests had been given
was sealed in a brown envelope by Connerotte and handed
over to a judicial registrar).
As a result the lawyers of Dutroux and Nihoul filed a
complaint that Connerotte was not objective enough and
that he should be removed as examining magistrate. This
is what happened on October 14, sparking massive
protests all around the country. October 15, 1996, The
Guardian, 'Belgian fury at pedophile case sacking':
"Belgium's justice system was under renewed public
assault last night after a much-praised local magistrate
investigating the paedophile scandal was removed from
the case for accepting a plate of spaghetti paid for by
campaigners against child abuse... The ruling occurred
despite intense pressure, including an appeal from the
prime minister, Jean-Luc Dehaene, for the judges to be
'creative' and tolerant, and a petition signed by more
than 300,000 Belgians... Thousands attended weekend
demonstrations, and the Belgian railway network has
promised to subsidise the fares of those attending mass
demonstrations next weekend... There was widespread
outrage that Mr Connerotte, who has become a national
hero, should be dropped at the behest of lawyers acting
for the reviled Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul... The
parents of the four young girls allegedly abducted and
murdered by Mr Dutroux and his associates demonstrated
with a crowd of 700 people outside the court. There were
chants of 'Assassins, assassins,' as lawyers entered the
building... Paul Marchal, the father of a teenage girl
kidnapped and killed by the gang, said: 'It is the
beginning of the end. Justice is dead in Belgium.' Gino
Russo, the father of an eight-year-old girl who starved
to death in a cell in Mr Dutroux's basement, said: 'This
decision spits on our daughters' graves.' ... This is
the second prominent case from which Mr Connerotte has
been removed. Three years ago he was taken off an
investigation into the murder of the former deputy prime
minister Andre Cools, just as he seemed about to crack
the case... " Connerotte was replaced by Jacques
Langlois, a newly-promoted examining magistrate whose
first assignment became "the case of the century".
Langlois, clearly under pressure from the BOB and
individuals from Belgium's establishment, soon became
responsible for sabotaging and closing all leads
pointing towards a larger network and the key
involvement of Nihoul in it. Connerotte had not been
interested in pursuing Raemaekers' claims about Focant,
which started on October 9, to any extent. This
immediately changed after Langlois took over from him on
October 14, leading to the Jumet disaster. In 1997,
Langlois agreed with the BOB that the X1 testimonies
should be "re-read" (manipulated). December 3, 2002,
Annemie Bulte for Humo, 'War in Neufchateau: examining
magistrate Connerotte speaks about the Dutroux dossier
for the first time' (Connerotte): "I regularly and
much earlier complained about those terrible
circumstances in which I had to work in the Dutroux
case... How could one, single, understaffed examining
judge work through such heaps of information and
separate the important things from the unimportant?... I
experienced those circumstances as a form of pressure...
I definitely did not consider it impossible that I was
being manipulated. We continually received information
about all kinds of bizarre leads. Those then received a
lot of media attention, but to us meant nothing but time
loss... Just think about the Abrasax case and the digs
in Jumet. If I remember correctly, the first leads in
those two cases were already put under my nose in the
very beginning of the investigation. Afterwards
precisely Abrasax and Jumet were used by the media as an
argument to say that the whole investigation was
manipulated and pointed towards false leads [by low
level paedophiles as Raemaekers and "believing"
investigators]. I experienced the same thing in the
Cools case, in which the police began to manipulate and
was wholeheartedly supported by the media."
Connerotte's career did not end, and in 2001, he
arrested several men in his district who abused several
young boys and girls. The arrests included the family's
physician and the father of two of the girls who acted
as their pimp. December 3, 2002, Annemie Bulte for Humo,
'War in Neufchateau: examining magistrate Connerotte
speaks about the Dutroux dossier for the first time' (Connerotte):
""The media that cooperated in tarring the
investigators or magistrates, just as the investigators
who tipped this media, turn out to be protected, while
other [honest] investigators and magistrates are
suspected of violating their oaths of confidentiality.
Cost nor effort is being spared in the investigations
against them. Worse, these are often accompanied by a
lynching party in the media..." [reprint of a December
8, 2000 letter of Connerotte:] "I wrote my letter in
response to two judicial investigations that appear to
have begun by the district attorney general in Liege:
the investigation into the leaks in the Dutroux dossier
and a second investigation that has been aimed directly
at me, and in which I would be suspected of forgery and
fraud."" Connerotte was called in to testify at the
Dutroux-Nihoul process in early 2004, and for some
reason looked incredibly worn out. March 5, 2004,
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for the Telegraph, 'Judge tells
of murder plots to block Dutroux investigation':
"The Belgian judge who saved two
young girls from Marc Dutroux's paedophile dungeon broke
down in the witness box yesterday, alleging high-level
murder plots to stop his investigation into a child-sex
mafia. Jean-Marc Connerotte choked in tears on the
fourth day of the trial, describing the bullet-proof
vehicles and armed guards needed to protect him against
shadowy figures determined to stop the full truth coming
out. "Never before in Belgium has an examining
magistrate at the service of the king been subjected to
such pressure," he said. "We were told by police that
[murder] contracts had been taken out against the
magistrates. As the danger mounted, emergency measures
were taken." He then froze in silence and the court was
adjourned until he recovered. He alleged that "organised
crime methods" were used to discredit his work and
ensure that his investigation ended in "judicial
failure". A hero to millions of Belgians, Judge
Connerotte was stripped of the Dutroux case after he had
dinner with families of the victims in October 1996,
which was deemed a conflict of interest. The move
resulted in workers going on strike and 300,000 people
marching silently through Brussels in mass protest.
Seven years later, some of the families are boycotting
the trial, describing it as a "circus" and saying that
the inquiry effectively shut down the moment Judge
Connerotte departed. Addressing the jury of 12 at the
Arlon Palais de Justice yesterday, Judge Connerotte
relived the moment in August 1996 when his team rescued
the two girls, Sabine Dardenne, 12, and Laetitia Delhez,
14, from the cage beneath Dutroux's house in the slums
of Charleroi. He said the girls recoiled back into the
cell when the 450lb hidden door was pulled open, fearing
that the paedophile "band" had come to get them. As
Dutroux coaxed them out, saying there was nothing to
fear, they clutched on to him as their protector. "They
thanked and embraced him, which is truly disgusting,"
Judge Connerotte said. "That shows how far they had been
conditioned. It was Machiavellian." Sabine had been
seized as she cycled to school, then smuggled to
Charleroi in the boot of a car and held for 79 days,
much of the time chained by the neck. Dutroux admitted
this week that he had raped her 20 times but he denies
that he is a paedophile. He said the plan was to hand
her over as a "consignment" to the criminal network but
he kept her because he was "depressed" and wanted to
"expand his family". Judge Connerotte said Dutroux had
displayed a "frightening professionalism" in designing
the secret cells: "Clearly they were built so they
couldn't be found," he said. "He had installed a
ventilation system so that the odours were extracted
from above. The dogs couldn't smell the presence of the
young girls." Even so, he castigated the Charleroi
authorities for failing to take action much earlier.
Dutroux had been named in police files in July 1995 as a
suspect in the abduction of two eight-year-old girls -
Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo - more than a year
before their bodies were found on Dutroux's land. "The
file talks of seizure of children, foreign trafficking,
and perhaps even of cells, if I remember well," Judge
Connerotte said. "The sum of 150,000 francs [£2,500] was
mentioned as the price for girls. I was struck by the
richness of these documents. Any magistrate should have
acted the way I did later." While Dutroux's house was
searched five months after the tip-off, it appears to
have been a perfunctory visit. Nothing was found. The
girls apparently starved to death in the dungeon while
Dutroux was in prison for 106 days. "A medical expert
told me an adult can last a maximum of 60 days," the
judge said. "Until we find out how Julie and Melissa
actually died, we are not going to solve this case."
Dutroux testified this week that the girls were already
dead when he returned from prison, contradicting his
earlier statements. He said matter-of-factly that he put
the bodies in the freezer for a week to get them out of
the way. His wife insisted that they were still alive
when he came back. In January 1996 Judge Connerotte
wrote to King Albert alleging that his investigations
into crime networks were being blocked because suspects
"apparently enjoyed serious protection". He went on to
say that the "dysfunctional judiciary" was breaking down
as mafia groups took secret control of the "key
institutions of the country". His enemies fought back
after he was pulled off the case. He was formally
accused, along with two key detectives, of manipulating
testimony, forgery, and illegal leaks. The inquiries
took up three years, drawing off police energy while the
main Dutroux case languished. In the end, the three were
cleared of all charges. "You would have thought that the
Dutroux dossier was so serious that investigators would
do everything in their power to discover the truth,"
Judge Connerotte said. "But exactly the opposite
happened. Rarely has so much energy been spent opposing
an inquiry."" |
| Patriek De Baets
|
Officer in the Special Brigade of
Investigation (BOB; Belgian FBI and a division within
the gendarmerie), tasked by Jean-Marc Connerotte to
investigate the claims of Regina Louf (X1). X1 had first
contacted Connerotte on September 4, 1996 and interviews
with her started on September 20. Interview with Patriek
De Baets, Humo, September 28, 1999 and October 5, 1999,
'Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul: the sabotage of an
investigation': "[Col.] Brabant made prosecuter
Bourlet believe that we still had a lot of other work to
do in Brussels. That was nonsense, not a single dossier
was waiting there for us that was as important as the
Dutroux case. But befriended journalists of La Derniere
Heure and Le Soir were also served these lies and used
them in their first attacks against Neufchateau and the
investigation into Dutroux and Nihoul: "What a disgrace,
Bourlet gets 350 inspectors, and dossiers involving
billions of franks, like KB-Lux, are neglected!
Especially the Brussels examining magistrate Jean-Claude
Van Espen immediately supported Brabant. His financial
dossiers supposedly didn't make any progress anymore,
because all the inspectors worked for Neufchateau. Not
true! At that moment absolutely no one from the KB-Lux
dossier worked for the magistrates of Neufchateau. And
my section also, the 3rd KOS, didn't work on an urgent
case at the time. I still wonder which 'urgent dossiers'
Van Espen was really talking about. It seemed as if even
back then he already anticipated that we would bump into
dossiers on which he used to work. Van Espen knew very
well who Annie Bouty was. He had been her lawyer. And
his former brother-in-law, the lawyer Philippe Deleuze,
used to be a partner in Bouty's law firm. Van Espen was
part of a network of friends in politics, magistracy and
police services which Nihoul and Bouty had woven to
cover up their criminal activities." In November
1996, soon after examining magistrate Jean-Marc
Connerotte had been replaced by Jacques Langlois, Louf
began to notice that Patriek De Baets was under
increasing pressure from a number of very sceptical
colleagues. To appease this group, since December 1
headed by Commandant Jean-Luc Duterme, De Baets allowed
some of the officers in the videoroom and made sure to
keep the camera running during breaks. This way De Baets
tried to make sure that nobody could accuse him, or his
colleagues, of manipulating the witness during breaks.
This effort failed, as in late December the
newly-appointed coordinator of the whole Dutroux and
X-investigation, Commandant Duterme, began to re-read
(i.e. manipulate) the existing statements of X1. This is
a highly unusual procedure, and in this case virtually
unique because under normal circumstances a magistrate
would have to give the order to re-read, not a mid-, or
even a higher level, BOB officer. In November 1996, De
Baets became a victim of a complex disinformation scheme
ran by Brussels police commissioner Georges Marnette, an
alleged client of Belgium's paedophile network. On
November 16, the press reported the accusations of
Oliver Trusgnach, who claimed that he, as a minor, had
sex with Elio Di Rupo and Jean-Pierre Grafe. Several
hours before the press decided to report on this leak,
De Baets had been called back from vacation to do a
house search directly related to the Trusgnach case. De
Baets had no idea what the whole Trusgnach case was
about, because it had been the work of Marnette's
judicial police all along, and under normal
circumstances there would be no good reason to bring in
the BOB, and especially not De Baets, who was working on
the X1 case. Although not entirely successful, the media
did try to spin the story insinuating that De Baets had
been behind the whole Di Rupo affair. Trusgnach has been
used extensively to promote the idea that the X
witnesses are just as unreliable. Interview with Patriek
De Baets, Humo, September 28, 1999 and October 5, 1999,
'Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul: the sabotage of an
investigation': "And why were we brought into that
ludicrous Di Rupo investigation? Because we were working
on the well-known X-witnesses. By discrediting me and my
team through the Di Rupo case, one actually wanted to
discredit the testimonies of the Xs..." In
mid-February 1997, De Baets (originally in cooperation
with Connerotte) had put together a list of 43 targets
at which he wanted to do a house search, this in order
to confirm aspects of the testimony of X1. At that point
Duterme inquired about these targets, and ordered that 5
or 6 would be more than enough. Ultimately they were all
scrapped. Instead, on March 20, 1997, the home of X1
herself was raided, officially in an effort to find
evidence that she had gotten her information from
newspapers and books (in reality it was just an effort
to intimidate X1). Duterme's re-reading efforts
continued in early 1997. Interestingly, he did not speak
Dutch very well, the language in which the interviews
had been conducted. Partly as a result of that, he began
to make rather ridiculous notes next to certain
passages. He asked the help of three other colleagues,
and again none of these people spoke Dutch very
fluently. Some of them were already involved in the
campaign to discredit X-witness Nathalie W. De Baets:
"It comes down to the fact that some resolutely
chose for their careers. To be liked by Duterme it was
enough to joke around a bit with isolated passages from
the X1 hearings. For them it was a kind of amusement."
June 3, 1997 note written by Duterme to the BOB
commandant in Brussels: "At times I had the
impression that sensational arrests and a mediatized
dossier were his [De Baets'] primary concerns. Based on
my observations, and supported herein by other
investigators, I have put together a team to re-read and
analyze the past interviews of adjutant De Baets... I
was confronted with a manipulating investigator..., a
dangerously subjective investigator who never wanted to
admit that his own presupposed hypotheses might just be
wrong..., I was confronted with an investigator who used
the sensitive and emotional climate after the Dutroux
case to ignore his hierarchy, with as only aim to caress
his own vanity... The position of the person involved
within the investigation is, like I earlier explained,
very important and a possible measure to remove him, at
the moment would look very bad. Some could possibly
believe or make believe that one is trying to derail the
investigation." On July 3, the "final" (more would
follow) re-read was finished, which repeated these
accusations. On July 10, Van Espen, Langlois, Duterme
and the three other re-readers secretly came together
and decided to temporarily relieve De Baets and his team
from the X-dossier case. This group never contacted De
Baets with these re-reads during the time they were
writing them, never watched any of the videos of X1, and
only re-read three of the seven reports in which
Christine van Hees was mentioned. These were parts 1, 2,
and 7. They ignored parts 3, 4, 5, and 6, even though
Van Hees had also been described in these parts. Not
that it mattered, because the re-reads that had been
done were based on deceptive argumentation, as shown
point for point in the 1999 book 'The X-Dossiers'. De
Baets: "During that time secret meetings took place
between a small group of BOB officers who wanted to
dismantle the X1 investigations at all costs. There,
behind our backs, crucial decisions have been made.
Together with substitute magistrate Paule Somers -a girl
to whom they could make up anything- these BOB officers
plotted the murder on the investigation." In a
later stage, the re-read reports were given to the
media, without the whole testimony being made available.
On August 20, 1997, Duterme decided to sack De Baets and
his team from the X-dossier case all together. The only
member of De Baets' team that was allowed to stay was
Danny De Pauw, who had joined the camp of Duterme and
Langlois. One of his colleagues later said that Danny
had done this for the simple reason of saving his
career. Anonymous BOB inspector: "What happened in
that period between De Baets and Van Espen is not
normal. Suppose that De Baets and his men indeed
overreached themselves. Suppose that they lost all sense
of reality and indeed gave the Xs far more credit than
they deserved, even then the attitude of Van Espen
cannot be explained. In the past Van Espen has covered
up many mistakes of the financial section, and vice
versa probably many more. There was a bond of mutual
trust. Now friends became arch enemies over night.
Nothing has been discussed, it has not even been
attempted to settle this as grown men." Also on
August 20, Duterme filed an official complaint against
De Baets and his colleagues that they were manipulating
X1 during the interviews, allegedly leading to "rumors"
of high level child abuse networks. The main accusation
against De Baets was that he had not made an official
report of the fact that X1, from a list of pictures,
misidentified Christine Van Hees. This turned out to be
lie, as this report, PV 117.487 - December 6, 1997, had
been written and properly filed by his assistant
Philippe Hupez. Hupez wrote many other official reports
together with De Baets. The weekly magazine Pan, headed
by Paul Vanden Boeynants (accused by X1 and others),
joyously reported on August 21 that De Baets and his
team had been removed from Neufchateau. Interestingly,
the investigators themselves were only told about their
removal on August 25, by Col. Brabant, who had recently
sanctioned a media campaign against Nathalie W. by the
same re-readers. Jacques Pignolet was appointed as the
examining magistrate to investigate the complaints of
Duterme and Van Espen. Starting around this time, De
Baets was attacked by Baron de Bonvoisin (accused by X1
and others) and some of his associates. They made up
claims that subsequently also had to be investigated by
Pignolet. In 2000, however, De Baets and his team
members were fully acquitted of any charges that they
had been manipulating X1 during interviews. They also
were acquitted of all the accusations made by Baron de
Bonvoisin & Co. Pignolet's team of investigators had
found absolutely nothing after almost three years of
research on the team of De Baets. However, the
X-dossiers were not reopened as a result of that. De
Baets always had the idea to interview X1 for 2 or 3
years while in between checking out the claims she made.
He never got the chance. Important note from Patriek De
Baets about X1: "About those four childbirths,
followed by murders, I never believed that... That she
lost at least one child, to me that seems to be certain.
What bothers her the most, is that that child has faded
from history. You noticed during interviews that she had
a strong urge to give her lost child - or children - a
place in her narrative. That was the most important to
her. I did not see this as intentionally lying. It was
clear that she had great trouble finding her way in her
memories. We became angry about that at some point. She
kept mixing up facts with each other of which you could
see that they weren't right. And still we had to listen,
I thought. We were only at the beginning. I estimated
that we, if we could have proceeded, would only have had
a clear picture of her past after a year or two. In
between we had to verify. And that's what we did, how
much we were accused afterwards for not having done
that.' It could be a coincidence, but the first
verifications of the testimony of X1 were direct hits."
Interview with Patriek De Baets, Humo, September 28,
1999 and October 5, 1999, 'Marc Dutroux and Michel
Nihoul: the sabotage of an investigation': "I think
that there was a higher plan. The population had to get
the message: "There's a witch hunt going on in this
country, the investigation is derailing, they've gone
crazy in Neufchateau. Let's stop going after Nihoul."
And even more important was the finger pointing to the
politicians: "You again were probably responsible!
Chasing politicians, bringing down bigwigs, that's the
hobby of men such as De Baets. So now close the ranks as
soon possible."... And why were we brought into that
ludicrous Di Rupo investigation? Because we were working
on the well-known X-witnesses. By discrediting me and my
team through the Di Rupo case, one actually wanted to
discredit the testimonies of the Xs... Again, take
examining magistrate Van Espen: he walked in very tight
shoes, because Nihoul had fingered him to members the
23th brigade of the judicial police as the person who
always stood ready to protect him and his friends as
legal trouble was around the corner... And all of a
sudden Regina Louf pointed to individuals who Van Espen
knew only all too well. This could severely compromise
him. So Van Espen also benefited from us being
discredited in the Di Ripo case... I think that he
[Duterme] followed the orders from his hierarchical
superiors: Jean-Marie Brabant, commandant of the
BOB-Brussels, and Guido Torrez, commandant of the
Brussels district. Torrez had a good reason to stop me:
he had earlier in his career intervened in favor of
Annie Bouty, the ex of Nihoul. If that were to come out,
if he would be linked to that couple at that moment, he
would be branded for the rest of his career. And Brabant
absolutely did not want to he held accountable for
Nihoul being a non-registered informant of the BOB.
Those men had to protect themselves. They pulled the
strings, they instructed Duterme. I think that the
investigation has been sabotaged from a lower echelon,
by people who have been in contact with Nihoul and who
have contacts and friends with the police services and
the magistracy. And who have good contacts in the press,
because the press had to infuse the
"this-cannot-be-true" atmosphere with the public."
These days, De Baets works at a police school and puts
together an education program for future inspectors. De
Baets: "Magistrates like
nothing better than summaries. If it could be done, they
would appreciate it if you summarize an investigation of
three years on two A4 papers. Well, I am principally
against that, and I'm not alone. Precisely because a
judicial investigation has to be carried out as
objectively as possible, several years ago the college
of prosecuter-generals banned the use of summaries as a
judicial workbase. In part because of that the X1
investigation was the best and most correct
investigation that has ever been carried out in this
country. It had to be an example of how things would be
done in the future. I still am and will always be proud
of that." |
| Philippe Hupez
|
Assistant of Patriek De Baets in
interviewing X1. Hupez was more patient at times with X1
than De Baets. Withdrew from the X1 investigation in
late November 1996, after 8th sessions with X1, to work
on another (less controversial) aspect of the Dutroux
investigation. Hupez first asked permission from X1, who
thought it was shame, but respected his decision,
knowing the case could break his career. Danny De Pauw,
who would later stab De Baets and his colleagues in the
back to save his career, became his follow-up. Even
before Danny converted, X1 was never very comfortable
with him as he had a tendency to be very nervous.
|
| Aime Bille |
BOB officer. Assistant of Patriek De
Baets in interviewing X1 and verifying her story. Known
as a workhorse who regularly produced ten to fifteen
official reports a day. Fired by Commandant Duterme in
the early stages of the investigation, literally for
working too hard (and on a Saturday, which formally
wasn't allowed). He was only allowed to return after De
Baets spoke with Duterme. Bille: "I can give a
simple example of something that I found bewildering. On
April 5, 1997, I had to receive the parents [of the late
Christine Van Hees] at my office. The examining
magistrate [Van Espen] was present. I had to show them
several objects. I had to ask the mother of Christine,
13 years after the event, if a bra and panty had
belonged to her daughter. And the father said to the
judge: 'The name of our daughter was not Claudine, it
was Christine.' That says a lot." Van Espen was
brought into the X1 case by statements from X1 that
resulted in the reopening of the Christine Van Hees
case, Van Espen's old dossier for more then 10 years. As
soon as X1 began to speak about the murder on her
Christine, Aime Bille, of the team of Patriek De Baets,
went through the old dossier of the murder on Christine
Van Hees. Bille concluded that many, many mistakes had
been made. One of them was official report (PV) 33797
from April 27, 1987, written by the Etterbeek police.
The PV was described as a tip from an anonymous
informant about the cafe Chez Dolores. However, when
Bille listened to the original tape, he found out that
the informant spoke about the Dolo, not Chez Dolores:
"If you want to keep a little bit informed, then go
to the Philippe Baucq street no. 140, to the Dolo. You
might learn something about the champignoniere... On the
corner of the Philippe Baucq street, the Dolo. If you go
there sometimes you might learn something about the
champignoniere. [informant hangs up]." The Dolo was
the favorite hang out of Nihoul, not only once a
business relationship of Van Espen, but also one of the
persons implicated by X1 about the Christine Van Hees
murder at the champignoniere. X1, X2 and Nathalie W. all
knew about the Dolo, to which their abusers had taken
them. Other witnesses also spoke about child abusers and
alleged child abusers visiting the Dolo. In 2000,
together with De Baets, Bille was acquitted of all
charges pertaining to the alleged manipulation of the
X-witnesses. |
| Rudy Hoskens |
Assistant of Patriek De Baets in
interviewing X1 and verifying her story. March 18, 2003,
Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part II' (Rudy
Hoskens): "You were frustrated, certain assignments
you were prevented from carrying out. For example, that
particular observation you cannot carry out. If you
wanted to place a phone tap that was too much money. And
thing like that. All of them small hints you were sent.
And you also couldn't know anymore what the re-readers
were doing, what their conclusions were... X1
or Regina Louf was just an ordinary girl who had been
abused. Why can't that be investigated? There are
persons who say that this woman is completely nuts.
That's something I definitely would not say. Certain
experts have been called upon who proved the opposite,
that this is a reasonably stable person, keeping in mind
everything she would have, possibly, experienced. Then
you verify: her story is 80% accurate, or 70%, or, I
don't know; even if only 10 or 20 percent is accurate,
as a detective you have to investigate that 20 percent.
That is your duty." |
| Luc Delmartino |
BOB officer who was the chief
interviewer of X2. He and colleague Eric Eloir have
stated that they suspect that police commissioner
Georges Marnette worked together with his allegedly good
friend Gilbert Dupont, a journalist of La Derniere
Heure, in leaking certain information aimed at
discrediting the whole Dutroux and X-witnesses
investigation. |
| Raymond Drisket
|
Police commissioner. Head of the
cell-Nihoul, who had been forced to hand over his
investigations of Nihoul, including all the files of the
Dolo, to the District Attorney's office in Brussels,
exactly where Drisket suspected Nihoul's protectors
could be found. His phone was tapped from late 1997
until somewhere in late 1999 / early 2000, officially
because he was a suspect in leaking information about
the Dutroux affair. However, phone taps continued for
almost two years after it had already been established
that Drisket was not responsible for that. Michel
Bourlet underwent the same fate. Drisket described
Nihoul as "an unreliable businessman, a profiteer
and opportunist, who is involved in bribery and
blackmail... [someone] who is game as soon as a job,
whatever it involves, can result in connections and
protection." (partially quoted, partially
paraphrased) |
| Christian Dubois
|
Police officer from La Louvière. In
September 1995 a new phenomenon occurred in which
occupants of white Mercedesses were following and
photographing schoolgirls. Reports first came in from
Bergen, La Louviere and Charleroi, and soon another 15
reports came in from Couvin, Thuin, Chimay and Beaumont.
In the afternoon of December 13, 1995, after a
disastrous search in Dutroux's Marcinelle home, Rene
Michaux (head of spy operation on Dutroux) met with
police officer Christian Dubois in La Louviere. This
officer informed him about even more cases of white
Mercedesses following schoolgirls. Dubois also turned
out to have an informant, separate from Claude Thirault
or gendarme officer Christophe Pettens -who were known
to Michaux-, who had informed Dubois that the white
Mercedesses belonged to a paedophile network centered
around a company called ASCO (not the company of the
Boas family which was mentioned by X1) in Schaarbeek or
Sint-Gillis. According to the informant, the occupants
of the white Mercedesses were putting together catalogs
with pictures of children. Their clients could pick one
of these kids, which would then be kidnapped, locked up
in Belgium for a while, and then exported to eastern
Europe or Thailand. The price for each child would be
300,000 franks or about 7500 euros. During their
conversation Michaux told Dubois about Dutroux. Dubois
recalled: "I remember that Michaux told me that
Dutroux went to countries in eastern Europe... The sums
he mentioned for the kidnappings were similar to those
given to me by my informant... Even today this still
keeps me awake at night. I feel responsible. Afterwards,
in 1996, I looked into Dutroux... You just felt it. This
was the man we were looking for! I should have bought a
crowbar and a gun and, against all regulations, entered
that house in Marcinelle; and tear down everything until
I had found those kids... It would have been worth the
risk [of losing my job]." Dubois strongly felt that
he and Michaux had independently stumbled on the same
network and was sure that his colleague was going to
take action. This wasn't the case, however, which later
also greatly surprised the Verwilghen Commission.
Michaux made a note of Dubois' information and simply
left it there. In the mean time, Dubois was ridiculed by
his boss, commissioner Monique Devodder. In January she
even went public in a tv broadcast on Au Nom de la
Loi (famous for their later campaign against the
X-witnesses) to denounce the reports about the white
Mercedesses as unsubstantiated rumors. Dubois was then
transferred from field work to a support division, but
this didn't keep him from doing investigative work on
Dutroux and ASCO. On June 18, 1996, Dubois sent a fax to
police commissioner Daniel Lamoque informing him about
the connections between ASCO, Dutroux and the
disappearance of Julie and Melissa. No reply was given
by Lamoque and he would later give a rather bizarre
testimony in which he explained that Dubois had written
that the men in the white Mercedesses were interested in
"mineurs", which he interpreted as "only boys" and
therefore couldn't have had a connection with the case
of Julie and Melissa. ASCO (Achats Services Commerces;
again, not the company of the Boas family which was
mentioned by X1) later turned out to be a very
interesting company. It was incorporated on July 2,
1991, primarily by Jean-Louis Delamotte, a friend and
regular business partner of Michel Nihoul who also went
to the Dolo. Nihoul, Bernard Weinstein, Michel Lelievre
and Michele Martin (not Dutroux) had all been spotted on
a regular basis in the immediate surroundings of the
company. People in the neighborhood had also noted that
Nihoul was often surrounded by young negro girls and had
the impression that these girls were on transit. Five
mattresses and some baby milk were found inside the
company's headquarters after the it had gone bankrupt in
1994. Delamotte's company Soparauto, registered at the
same address, owned 5 white mercedesses, all with French
license plates, as had been reported. |
|
The bad guys
| Jacques Langlois |
PSC supporter, whose aunt had been a long
time PSC mayor of the village Saint-Vincent. Joseph Michel, once
a minister of the PSC under Paul Vanden Boeynants, introduced
Jacques Langlois to politics in 1988 and made him a magistrate
in 1993. Michel had been a founding member of the fascist CEPIC
think tank within the PSC, which was largely coordinated by Paul
Vanden Boeynants and Baron de Bonvoisin. Joseph Michel had been
contacted by Jean-Michel Nihoul from prison in 1978, and became
responsible for his early release. Langlois lived in Etalle
where his neighbor was the son of Joseph Michel. On Friday,
August 9, 1996 the 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez disappeared in
Bertrix, a town located in the district of Neufchateau, near the
border of France and Luxemburg. Michel Bourlet, prosecutor of
the king in Neufchateau, was tasked with the case and appointed
investigating judge Jacques Langlois to coordinate the
investigation. When Langlois left for vacation the following
Monday, Bourlet replaced him with his close colleague Jean-Marc
Connerotte. Appointed 2nd examining magistrate in the Dutroux
case, next to Connerotte, on August 20, 1996. Did not share
Connerotte's conviction that Dutroux was part of a much larger
network in which many prominent individuals were to be found.
This also put him at odds with Bourlet, the King's prosecuter at
Neufchateau, and Patriek De Baets, chief investigator of the X1
case. Took over the whole Dutroux case from Connerotte in
October 1996. According to André Rossignon, a former high level
PSC official, Langlois' old CEPIC-PSC protege Joseph Michel was
largely responsible for the removal Connerotte and would also
have been influential in preventing Langlois from searching the
PSC headquarters. Langlois became largely responsible for the
acquittal of Michel Nihoul from charges of being involved in
kidnapping children. Continually stonewalled inspector Raymond
Drisket, one of the most dedicated investigators into Nihoul.
Largely responsible for the disastrous Jumet digs, which had
been inspired by the claims of Jean-Paul Raemaekers (in which
Connerotte had not been interested). In early 1997, Langlois
agreed with the BOB that the X1 testimonies should be "re-read"
(manipulated). Only communicated with the direct superior of De
Baets, Commandant Duterme. In early April 1997, Duterme began to
worry about "X-witness" Nathalie W. telling everything she knew
to family, friends and reporters. Within two weeks, however, the
media began a full scale attack on Nathalie instead. Theo
Vandyck, the early interviewer who she had trusted, had
recovered enough from his stroke to find out what was happening
at Neufchateau. It turned out that Pourbaix and his colleagues
had contacted the media in an effort to discredit Nathalie. When
Vandyck pointed out to Pourbaix that he risked being prosecuted
for violating official secrets, he was told that Duterme and
Col. Brabant of the BOB had given their full support for the
media campaign. Vandyck's inquiries were answered with a brief
letter from Langlois telling him to leave the Nathalie W. case
alone. Laurent Arnauts, councilor to Nathalie W., had earlier
asked Langlois for an explanation for the abuse of Nathalie's
interviewers, but never received a reply. Present at meetings of
the Obelix Cell, the coordinating meetings of the Dutroux affair
in the first half of 1997, together with Andre Vandoren, Patrick
Duinslaeger, Michel Bourlet, Benoit Dejemeppe, Jean Soenen,
Nicole De Rouck, Paule Somers, Jean-Claude Van Espen, a number
of gendarme officers, leaders of investigating teams, judicial
police officers and criminal analysts. X1 largely dominated the
agenda of these meetings. On July 10, Van Espen, Langlois,
Duterme and the three other re-readers secretly came together
and decided to temporarily relieve De Baets and his team from
the X-dossier case. A month later this decision became a
permanent. November 30, 2002, De Morgen, 'De grote zwendel in
feiten' ('The great swindle in facts'): "In the past five
years, the RTBF-program Au Nom de la Loi dedicated four tv
programs and a book to Michel Nihoul. The first program, on
September 17, 1997, ended with a close-up of the Audi 80 which
Nihoul had entrusted to Dutroux's buddy Michel Lelievre in
August 1996. And see, according to the RTBF, the evidence: the
telephone contacts between Dutroux and Nihoul only dealt with
cars, not children. A second program, on June 3, 1998, was
accompanied by the publication of a book of one of the employees
of Au Nom de la Loi, who explained at a press conference that
morning: "The paedophile network does not exist. Michel Nihoul
is innocent." For those who still didn't get it, a third program
of Au Nom de la Loi followed on March 22, 2000: "On the basis of
documents and testimonies we show that Nihoul could not have
been involved in the kidnapping of Laetitia." For those who even
then still did not get it, a fourth broadcast about and with
Nihoul followed. Never before could a suspect in a criminal case
count on such a supportive band of followers as Nihoul with the
la Loi. Even in September 1997 journalists whispered to each
other that the real producer of Au Nom de la Loi was nobody else
than examining magistrate Jacques Langlois. The RTBF journalists
paraded all too eagerly with the announcement that the examining
magistrate had called them on the morning of September 18, 1997:
"It was great." Since last week we know that producer Gerard
Rogge with two colleagues, participated in a meeting with
Langlois. That rumor circulated in late '97, but was believed by
few. The law very specifically states that an examining
magistrate under no circumstances can speak with journalists.
And certainly not in the Dutroux dossier, in which the Court of
Cassation had rigorously defined the lines after the spaghetti
arrest. [Connerotte]... Even though the letter of Bourlet speaks
for itself, nobody has contested the facts as he laid them out,
and Gerard Rogge (RTBF) himself admitted that Langlois "accepted
to meet us", the majority of the Belgian media radically turned
the facts around. Was that note real? Shouldn't this incident be
presented as a struggle between believers and disbelievers? Why
did the note of Bourlet turned up only now? (answer: because
Journal du Mardi could only get its hands on it two weeks ago).
In the mean time, the way in which a number of media have
presented the story has given the lawyer of Nihoul, Frédérique
Clément de Cléty, enough confidence to file a complaint against
Bourlet at the District Attorney's office in Liege. He is being
accused of "information poisoning", with the unavoidable result
that the prosecuter (at least temporarily) has to step down.
This action could only work because Nihoul felt himself
supported by a great number of journalists, that generously
offered to "testify against Bourlet"." Criticized by Paul
Marchal, the father of An, on November 25, 1997. Marchal held
Langlois responsible for the fact that a number of important
files had disappeared from the Dutroux dossier and that
important leads to possibly higher ups in the Dutroux network
were not pursued. Also criticized by Gino Russo, the father of
Melissa, when Langlois concluded that it was possible for Julie
and Melissa to have survived for 104 days in the home of Dutroux
when this person was in jail. The report Langlois quoted from
contained an endless list of reasons why it basically was
impossible that Julie and Melissa would have survived. However,
Langlois decided to only remember the first part of one of the
last sentences: "It is possible... [but extremely
unlikely]." |
| Lt.-Gen. Willy Deridder
|
Born in 1941. Studied law at the Free
University of Brussels and became a doctor of law. Joined the
Gendarmerie. Liaison officer to the Cabinet of the Minister of
the Interior. Chief of staff to the commandant of the
Gendarmerie. Commandant of the Gendarmerie until May 1998, and
therefore ultimately responsible for the cover up of the Dutroux
investigation, which was headed by Commandant Duterme. Made the
decision to resign when Marc Dutroux briefly escaped on April
23, 1998, coincidentally during the same hours that X1's pimp
acknowledged a large part of her story (which the Gendarmerie
tried to discredit at all costs). Always refused to work with
Comite P., the "police of the police", even questioning the
reasons for its existence. Member of the General Secretariat of
Interpol May 1999 - October 2001. Executive director (no. 2
position) of Interpol since October 2001. Cheerleader of the War
on Terror at Interpol. |
| Lt.-Gen. Herman Fransen
|
Long time chief of staff to Lt.-Gen. Willy
Deridder, commandant (head) of the Gendarmerie until May 1998.
Commandant of the Gendarmerie since May 1998. His brother was
appointed head of the inquiry that desperately tried to find a
link between De Baets and X1 before the Dutroux investigation
(and failed). |
| Col. Hubert Fransen |
Younger brother of Lt.-Gen. Herman Fransen,
commandant of the Gendarmerie since May 1998. Senior officer in
the Inspection Department (including Internal Affairs) of the
Gendarmerie. Appointed head of investigation of the Pignolet
inquiry in early 1999, after his predecessor, adjutant Etienne
Goossens, was unable to find any evidence of a conspiracy
between De Baets and X1. Goossens had told Goffinon numerous
times that he was chasing ghosts, but kept being sent out to
check the most ridiculous facts to find any kind of tie between
De Baets and X1 before the Dutroux Affair. There was absolutely
nothing to be found. Under Fransen the "investigation"
intensified. The home of Tania V., the good friend of X1, was
searched, possible ties between X1 and Gang of Nijvel victims
were searched, and helicopters were used to shoot aerial
pictures of a villa which might have played a central role in
the "De Baets-X1 conspiracy". This bogus investigation became
almost as expensive as the original X1 investigation itself.
Again, absolutely nothing was found. |
| Lt.-Col. Jean-Marie Brabant
|
Head of the BOB in Brussels and the immediate
superior of Jean Luc Duterme there. Met with Connerotte in late
August 1996 to convince the examining magistrate to cancel his
planned house searches at the BOB. Connerotte had been planning
to do that after A) he found out that Nihoul was an informant of
the BOB and was allowed to continue his dirty business in
exchange for information on other criminals, and B) he found out
that the BOB had lied to him when they denied having dossiers
about Michel Nihoul or Annie Bouty. Connerotte called off the
searches, but in exchange Col. Brabant temporarily had to hand
over control of some top investigators at the financial section
of the BOB. Interview with Patriek De Baets, Humo, September 28,
1999 and October 5, 1999, 'Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul: the
sabotage of an investigation': "[Col.] Brabant made
prosecuter Bourlet believe that we still had a lot of other work
to do in Brussels. That was nonsense, not a single dossier was
waiting there for us that was as important as the Dutroux case.
But befriended journalists of La Derniere Heure and Le Soir were
also served these lies and used them in their first attacks
against Neufchateau and the investigation into Dutroux and
Nihoul: "What a disgrace, Bourlet gets 350 inspectors, and
dossiers involving billions of franks, like KB-Lux, are
neglected! Especially the Brussels examining magistrate
Jean-Claude Van Espen immediately supported Brabant. His
financial dossiers supposedly didn't make any progress anymore,
because all the inspectors worked for Neufchateau. Not true! At
that moment absolutely no one from the KB-Lux dossier worked for
the magistrates of Neufchateau. And my section also, the 3rd
KOS, didn't work on an urgent case at the time. I still wonder
which 'urgent dossiers' Van Espen was really talking about."
Interview with Patrick De Baets, Humo, September 28, 1999
and October 5, 1999, 'Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul: the
sabotage of an investigation': "He [Col. Brabant] began
lying to the magistrates from day one. On August 12, 1996,
Dutroux was arrested, on August 16 Michel Nihoul; that same day
the District Attorney's office of Neufchateau, which headed the
investigation, asked to several police services if they knew
Nihoul. Brabant stated that Nihoul was not known by the BOB of
Brussels. That was peculiar, very peculiar, because it wasn't
true. We had already been after Nihoul a couple of times: in the
swindle dossier SOS Sahel and in the investigation into the
suspicious bankruptcy of the business office Annie Bouty et
associes, the company of the suspended lawyer Annie Bouty, the
ex of Nihoul. Brabant normally has a good memory; he knew that.
He must have known, because in that period he already was the
second commandant of the BOB..." Brabant sanctioned the BOB
in April 1997 to leak information to the press in an effort to
discredit Nathalie W. Au Nom de la Loi was one of the
primary media outlets that this information was leaked to.
|
| Lt.-Col. Guido Torrez
|
Head of the Neufchateau district of the
gendarmerie. On October 6, 1986, Torrez personally called the
gendarmerie in Schaarbeek to tell a gendarme officer to leave
his suspect, a Portuguese named Juan Borges, alone. The officer
in question wanted to arrest Borges for having written a bad
check of about $35,000. In the military-structured gendarmerie
it is highly unusual for senior officers to directly contact
field investigators. On October 8, Torrez explained to the
gendarme officer that he had ordered Borges to left alone after
he had received a phone call from the office of the secretary of
defense. The gendarme officer apparently didn't agree as he was
soon fired. The truth came out three years later when the
company of Annie Bouty, Cadreco, went bankrupt and all the
company's financial records were sieged. It turned out that
Bouty's friend Michel Nihoul had been the one who personally
called up and convinced Col. Torrez to leave Borges alone.
Borges was a business partner of Nihoul in the underworld, and
was involved in the illegal trade of gold, drugs, fake dollars,
art and apparently also humans. He had high level connections to
the Italian mafia and fascist members of the Jonathan Club like
Frederic Godfroi (inspector of the BOB in Brussels who became a
gang leader; friend of Jean Bultot and acquainted with Nihoul).
In 1985-1986, Borges owned the firm Candy Medical, which was a
front for illegal weapons trafficking. This firm was located in
a building owned by the Security Bureau of the European
Union/Commission, headed by fascist Pierre Eveillard, whose
brother was a police commissioner who protected the Dolo.
Brigitte Jenart, Borges' girlfriend since 1983 who only found
out about the criminal circuit he was involved with after a
while, claimed that it took only one call from Bouty at the time
for the gendarmerie to leave Borges alone. Jenart also claimed
that Bouty once in a while had it checked if Borges had not
appeared on an internal watchlist of the gendarmerie. Jenart
committed suicide in April 1998. The year before Col. Torrez had
been heared about this affair by Comite P. and ultimately the
conclusion of the Verwilghen Commission became that Torrez, as
newly-appointed local Gendarme chief at the time, had just been
naive when he believed that the person on the other side of the
line represented the office of the secretary of defense.
Responsible for appointing commandant Jean-Luc Duterme head of
the Dutroux investigation on December 1, 1996. Within a month,
Duterme had begun to torpedo the X investigations. Torrez also
is a good friend of Georges Marnette, a controversial police
commissioner who played a key role in covering up the
Dutroux-Nihoul investigation (while at the same time accused of
being one of the rapists in the network). Both Marnette and
Torrez are fans of the soccer club Anderlecht and often go to
matches together. |
| Cmd. Jean Luc Duterme
|
Officer in the BOB. From 1984 to about 1988,
right hand man of Nijvel/Nivelles prosecuter of the king Jean
Depretre in the Gang of Nijvel investigation. In this
investigation, Depretre exercised a large amount of influence on
examining magistrate Jean-Marie Schlicker. Depretre rejected all
evidence that indicated political motives of the Gang of Nijvel
and the involvement of the extreme-right. He requested to
gendarme general Robert "Bob" Bernaert (Duterme's boss), a good
friend of general Fernand Beaurir, that BOB officer Gerard Bihay
and his colleagues, who had written a report that made a strong
case for high level involvement in the Gang of Nijvel, were
demoted to the traffic section of the BOB. After kicking Bihay
and his colleagues out the door, Duterme brought in a number of
other BOB officers to investigate the ties of the Gang of Nijvel.
One of these officers was Didier Mievis, who several years
earlier had appeared in a report about Group G, a fascist-nazi
group involved in an elaborate plan to overthrow the Belgian
state. Mievis belonged to Group G and was known to have provided
Francis Dossogne with classified internal documents of the
gendarmerie. At the time that he was brought over to Duterme's
investigating cell, Mievis was still in contact with Dossogne
(paid "advisor" to
Baron de Bonvoisin; took his orders from Army Intelligence major
Jean Bougerol, head of PIO and personally picked by Vanden
Boeynants and Baron de Bonvoisin; another "private detective";
director of CIDEP, publisher of the fascist NEM magazine; good
friend Jean Bultot, who is closely tied to the Gang of Nijvel;
gave permission to Paul Latinus in '78-'79 to reorganize the
Brussels department of Front de la Jeunesse; according to
Martial Lekeu, Dossogne, Latinus and DEA agent Frank Eaton were
leaders of Group G, a Nazi-inspired NATO-sanctioned parallel
organization within the Gendarmerie).
Duterme publicly accused examining magistrate Jean-Marie
Schlicker of only being interested in the fascist links to the
Gang of Nijvel because of his Jewish background. When Schlicker
pushed through in 1985, not only did Depretre everything he
could to stop him, Schlicker's wife and kids were also
threatened. In late 1985, Depretre became determined to prove
that the Borains, a reasonably insignificant gang of criminals,
were behind the Gang of Nijvel terror campaign. The Borains were
acquitted from all charges in 1988, after a ballistics report
turned up that proved their innocence. This report had been
hidden away by Depretre. Around the same time, the Court of
Cassation removed Depretre from the Gang of Nijvel
investigation, because he was considered not objective enough.
However, Depretre, with the help of Duterme, had slowed down the
investigation enough in the first few crucial years that in the
period after that it turned out to be impossible to find the
real perpetrators of the Gang of Nijvel terror campaign. No. 2
of the BOB in Brussels at the time the Dutroux affair began,
under Lt.-Col. Jean-Marie Brabant. Commandant in the
Gendarmerie. Sent to Neufchateau on December 1, 1996 to
coordinate the investigation of the network that Dutroux was
involved with, as claimed by a number of victim-witnesses.
Besides Lt.-Col. Brabant, Lt.-Col. Guido Torrez, head of the
Neufchateau district of the gendarmerie, was responsible for
Duterme's appointment to this position. Already in 1989-1990, it
had been found out that Torrez had taken orders from Annie Bouty
and Michel Nihoul to leave an important criminal alone. Torrez
was a close friend of police commissioner Georges Marnette, who
also came to Neufchateau to manipulate the whole investigation.
Prosecutor of the king Michel Bourlet preferred to speak
directly to the inspectors and not via their superior Commandant
Duterme. Duterme, as a man who attached great importance to
formality, could not appreciate this, nor the informal way the
whole team of De Baets and other personnel worked with each
other. Duterme even fired Aime Bille, literally for working too
hard (and on a Saturday, which formally wasn't allowed). He was
only allowed to return after De Baets spoke with Duterme. Within
two weeks, Duterme began filing official complaints to his
superiors about the informal ways of the Neufchateau
investigators. In late December, at his own initiative,
Commandant Duterme began to re-read (i.e. manipulate) the
existing statements of X1. This is a highly unusual procedure,
and in this case virtually unique, because under normal
circumstances a magistrate would have to give the order to
re-read, not a mid-, or even a higher level, BOB officer.
Interestingly, Duterme did not speak Dutch very well, the
language in which the interviews had been conducted. Partly as a
result of that, he began to make rather ridiculous notes next to
certain passages. He asked the help of three other colleagues,
and again none of these individuals spoke Dutch very fluently.
Some of them were already involved in the campaign to discredit
X-witness Nathalie W. Duterme's re-reading efforts continued
throughout the first half of 1997. De Baets: "It comes down
to the fact that some resolutely chose for their careers. To be
liked by Duterme it was enough to joke around a bit with
isolated passages from the X1 hearings. For them it was a kind
of amusement." In mid-February 1997, Patriek De Baets
(interviewer of X1; originally worked in cooperation with
Connerotte and Bourlet) had put together a list of 43 targets at
which he wanted to do a house search, this in order to confirm
(more) aspects of the testimony of X1. At that point Duterme
inquired about these targets, and ordered that 5 or 6 would be
more than enough. Ultimately they were all scrapped. Instead, on
March 20, 1997, the home of X1 herself was raided, officially in
an effort to find evidence that she had gotten her information
from newspapers and books (in reality it was just an effort to
intimidate X1). June 3, 1997 note written by Duterme to the BOB
commandant in Brussels: "At times I had the impression that
sensational arrests and a mediatized dossier were his [De Baets']
primary concerns. Based on my observations, and supported herein
by other investigators, I have put together a team to re-read
and analyze the past interviews of adjutant De Baets... I was
confronted with a manipulating investigator..., a dangerously
subjective investigator who never wanted to admit that his own
presupposed hypotheses might just be wrong..., I was confronted
with an investigator who used the sensitive and emotional
climate after the Dutroux case to ignore his hierarchy, with as
only aim to caress his own vanity... The position of the person
involved within the investigation is, like I explained earlier,
very important and a possible measure to remove him, at the
moment would look very bad. Some could possibly believe or make
believe that one is trying to derail the investigation." On
July 3, the "final" (more would follow) re-read was finished,
which repeated these accusations. On July 10, Van Espen,
Langlois, Duterme and the three other re-readers secretly came
together and decided to temporarily relieve De Baets and his
team from the X-dossier case. This group never contacted De
Baets with these re-reads during the time they were writing
them, never watched any of the videos of X1, and only re-read
three of the seven reports in which Christine van Hees was
mentioned. These were parts 1, 2, and 7. They ignored parts 3,
4, 5, and 6, even though Van Hees had also been described in
these parts. Not that it mattered, because the re-reads that had
been done were based on deceptive argumentation, as shown point
for point in the 1999 book 'The X-Dossiers'. In a later stage,
the re-read reports were given to the media, without the whole
testimony being made available. On August 20, 1997, Duterme
decided to sack De Baets and his team from the X-dossier case
all together. The only member of De Baets' team that was allowed
to stay was Danny De Pauw, who had joined the camp of Duterme
and Langlois. One of his colleagues later said that Danny had
done this for the simple reason of saving his career. That same
August 20, Duterme filed an official complaint against De Baets
and his colleagues that they were manipulating X1 during the
interviews, allegedly leading to "rumors" of high level child
abuse networks. The weekly magazine Pan, headed by Paul Vanden
Boeynants (accused by X1 and others), joyously reported on
August 21 that De Baets and his team had been removed from
Neufchateau. Interestingly, the investigators themselves were
only told about their removal on August 25, by Col. Brabant (Duterme's
superior), who had recently sanctioned a media campaign against
Nathalie W. by the same re-readers. Jacques Pignolet was
appointed as the examining magistrate to investigate the
complaints of Duterme and Van Espen. Starting around this time,
De Baets was attacked by Baron de Bonvoisin (accused by X1 and
others) and some of his associates. They made up claims that
subsequently also had to be investigated by Pignolet. In June
2000, however, De Baets and his team members were fully
acquitted of any charges that they had been manipulating X1
during interviews. They also were acquitted of all the
accusations made by Baron de Bonvoisin & Co. Pignolet's team of
investigators had found absolutely nothing after almost three
years of research on the team of De Baets. However, the
X-dossiers were not reopened as a result of that. Interview with
Patrick De Baets, Humo, September 28, 1999 and October 5, 1999,
'Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul: the sabotage of an
investigation': "I think that he [Duterme] followed the
orders from his hierarchical superiors: Jean-Marie Brabant,
commandant of the BOB-Brussels, and Guido Torrez, commandant of
the Brussels district. Torrez had a good reason to stop me: he
had earlier in his career intervened in favor of Annie Bouty,
the ex of Nihoul. If that were to come out, if he would be
linked to that couple at that moment, he would be branded for
the rest of his career. And Brabant absolutely did not want to
he held accountable for Nihoul being a non-registered informant
of the BOB. Those men had to protect themselves. They pulled the
strings, they instructed Duterme. I think that the investigation
has been sabotaged from a lower echelon, by people who have been
in contact with Nihoul and who have contacts and friends with
the police services and the magistracy. And who have good
contacts in the press, because the press had to infuse the
"this-cannot-be-true" atmosphere with the public." Several
years after the Dutroux and X affair broke out, Marie-Jeanne Van
Heeswyck, together with another journalist, was sued by
Commandant Duterme for writing that Duterme was sabotaging the X
investigation. The journalists were forced to pay 12,500 euros
in compensations. Van Heeswyck was a journalist with Le Journal
Le Mardi, co-founded with the lawyer of the parents of Loubna
Benaïssa, the girl that was murdered by a paedophile (seemingly
part of a network). Van Heeswyck also was a co-author of the
1999 book 'The X-Dossiers'. |
| Georges Marnette |
Source(s):
X2 (apparently indirect accusation);
Nathalie W. (accused of raping her); anonymous witness (about
coke orgies with Nihoul); see the accused list for details.
Brussels police commissioner who played a
crucial role in protecting Nihoul and destroying the credibility
of the X-witnesses. You can find his biography in the accused
list. |
| Philippe Beneux |
Dutch-speaking right-hand of Brussels police
commissioner Georges Marnette. Judicial police contact of family
V., which testified to have seen Nihoul in Bertrix where
Laetitia had been kidnapped. Beneux told the family that their
testimony wasn't really necessary, because investigators already
had enough evidence against Nihoul (a lie). He also did nothing
when the family told him that they were being severely
intimidated by strangers. Bourlet ultimately was responsible for
finding more than a dozen other witnesses who had also seen
Nihoul in Bertrix on August 8, some of them in the company of
Dutroux. |
| Jean-Claude Van Espen
|
Appointed examining magistrate in the late
1970s or early 1980s, at the recommendation of the right wing of
the PSC (Vanden Boeynants, de Bonvoisin, etc.). Van Espen became
one of the most successful and respected examining magistrates
who investigated many prominent cases of fraud and corruption.
However, he has also been accused of not touching Belgium's
aristocratic financial establishment surrounding Societe
Generale and the business empire of Albert Frere. In the late
1970s, Jean-Michel Nihoul convinced Annie Bouty to set up her
own attorney's office, specialized in seeking asylum for
refugees from Africa. Nihoul took care of public relations and
brought in customers. Philippe Deleuze, a friend of Bouty from
college, became a partner in the law firm of Bouty and Nihoul in
1980. Deleuze was married to Francoise Van Espen, the sister of
Jean-Claude Van Espen, acted as the godmother of Nihoul's son.
Van Espen himself acted as an occasional partner in the firm.
Deleuze was a member of CEPIC and a board member of the
Tentoonstellingspark (exposition park) foundation, of which Paul
Vanden Boeynants was chairman. According to Nihoul, Vanden
Boeynants and Deleuze were responsible for the appointment of
Jean-Claude Van Espen to examining magistrate. Nihoul soon came
into contact with Vanden Boeynants. Deleuze resigned after 10
months in 1980 after stating that Nihoul was giving too much
business to Bouty and too little to him. His wife, Francoise,
also complained that the company received too many complaints
from clients who did not receive answers to their letters.
Nihoul was responsible for that. PV 10.543, October 8, 1996,
summary of an interrogation of Michel Nihoul: "He knew Van
Espen when this person was an occasional collaborator in the
office of Annie Bouty and Philippe Deleuze. The sister of Jean
Claude Van Espen is the wife of Philippe Deleuze and is the
godmother of the son of Jean Michel Nihoul. Jean Claude Van
Espen would have been appointed a magistrate after Paul Vanden
Boeynants, Philippe Deleuze intervened in his favor. Nihoul
declares to have learned from lawyer Vidick that Van Espen would
have been involved in a child molestation network."
Interestingly, also a person named John M. Verswyver, who had
become a cell mate of the paedophile Jean-Paul Raemaekers, began
to claim in early 1997 that Van Espen protected a network of
paedophiles. Interestingly, by this time Raemaekers had become
one of the most important disinformation assets of Jean-Paul
Dumont and police commissioner Georges Marnette, both accused of
child abuse themselves. Jean-Claude Van Espen is known to have
been the lawyer of Annie Bouty in mid 1984. Initially, in late
1997, when the first rumors about Van Espen having defended
Bouty started, Van Espen stated: "That is pertinently
untrue. I have never, ever, represented Annie Bouty."
Confronted with the specific documents his statement changed to:
"Maybe I represented her once, to replace another lawyer.
Yes, that could be." When Nihoul's business J.M. Nihoul et
Associes, founded in 1987 with the help of Annie Bouty, got
itself into legal trouble in 1989, Nihoul contacted Philippe
Deleuze. Deleuze then contacted his brother-in-law Jean-Claude
Van Espen to arrange a meeting to discuss their legal strategy (Nihoul
in PV 10.554, October 18, 1996). After the Dutroux affair, on
December 30, 1996, Nihoul would be sentenced to 3,5 years for
his frauds in SOS Sahel and J.M. Nihoul et Associes. Interview
with Patrick De Baets, Humo, September 28, 1999 and October 5,
1999, 'Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul: the sabotage of an
investigation': "Again, take examining magistrate Van Espen:
he walked in very tight shoes, because Nihoul had fingered him
to members the 23th brigade of the judicial police as the person
who always stood ready to protect him and his friends as legal
trouble was around the corner... And all of a sudden Regina Louf
pointed to individuals who Van Espen knew only all too well.
This could severely compromise him. So Van Espen also benefited
from us being discredited in the Di Ripo case." In November
1997, X1 stated to her therapist that she had seen Van Espen a
couple of times in the early 1980s in the presence of Nihoul and
Bouty. The therapist called De Baets, who had already been taken
off the investigation of X1, who wrote an official report. The
therapist mistakenly assumed that Van Espen was present at the
abuse and murders, which was later corrected by X1. The former
peace judge Bernard Devisscher was a close acquaintance of Van
Espen who could be found almost every evening at the Dolo,
Nihoul's favorite hang out since 1986. Nihoul also dated
Devisscher's sister. On August 5, 1992, the nine year old Loubna
Benaissa disappeared. Thirteen days after her disappearance, a
classmate of Loubna, Aziza, reported seeing Loubna sitting in
the back of a black Volkswagen Golf that drove by. She was so
convinced that it was Loubna that she quickly wrote down the
license plate of the car on her arm: FKE080. The Brussels
judicial police checked this license plate in 1992, but couldn't
link it with a black Volkswagen. In September 1996, the parents
of Loubna filed an official complaint about the earlier
investigation, which led to another one. The new investigators
checked if Aziza might have written a letter or a number of the
license plate wrong. Soon license plate FHE080 turned out to
belong to the law clerk of Jean-Claude Van Espen, who owned two
Volkswagen Golfs, albeit not a black one. This law clerk of Van
Espen was married into the Derochette family. One of these
family members, Patrick Derochette, was a known child abuser,
while the brother of Patrick owned a black Volkswagen Golf. The
investigators assumed it was perfectly possible that license
plates were swapped within the family and soon Derochette became
one of their leading suspects. On March 5, 1997, during a house
search, Loubna was found buried in the basement of Patrick
Derochette. Interestingly, Aime Bille of the research team of De
Baets found out that a full cousin of Patrick Derochette made
Fabienne Kirby, a friend of Christine Van Hees back in the early
1980s, pregnant. In late 1996, Kirby began confirming X1's
story, but was not re-interviewed before De Baets and team were
removed, in part because of Van Espen. It is known that a woman
named Nathalie Perignon phoned up Kirby during the Dutroux
investigation. Perignon had been suspiciously present with three
men (Radio Activite employees who knew Nihoul) in a black car
observing the champignoniere where Christine had been murdered a
week before. Additionally, the Loubna Benaissa case was also
tied to a paedophile named Roland Corvillain, who lived at an
address that was tied to the Nihoul-Bouty network (searched). He
was said to have acted suspiciously around the time of the
Loubna abduction. Corvillain was a business partner of Serge
Frantsevitch, the owner of Logitel in which Nihoul, Lelievre and
Martin were involved; Corvillain's ex-wife suspected in human
trafficking. Headed the investigation into the PEFL affair. When
the violent paedophile Jean-Paul Raemaekers was arrested in
1993, detectives found approximately 4000 videotapes in his
apartment in Rotterdam (a very underreported fact). Only 2000 of
these tapes were sent to the BOB. Allegedly because of a lack of
storage space, these were ordered destroyed in February 1995
(finally done in June 1996), one day after Raemaekers had lost
his chance to appeal against his sentence. The other 2000 or so
videos were stashed in a warehouse in Anderlecht of judicial
expert Andre Fourneau, something which most investigators were
not aware of. Allegedly because of a lack of storage space,
Fourneau wanted to get rid of these videos and sent the
collection to the curator of the PEFL auction in Molenbeek
(Brussels). On December 7, 1995, PEFL auctioned 779 videos of
Raemaekers' collection. Someone bought them all up (in three
parts) for 750 euros, a price which some were a bit surprised
about. It's not known what was on these tapes, but some
investigators suspect there was child pornography on many of
them. On October 1, 1985, Van Espen was appointed examining
magistrate of the investigation into the murder on Christine Van
Hees, which had occurred on February 13, 1984. Van Espen had
virtually no previous experience in murder and child abuse
cases. Against standard regulations, two heads of investigation
were appointed to the Van Hees case, instead of one: Guy
Collignon [went to Les Atrebats sex club] and Georges Ceupens.
In the 1,5 years before Van Espen's appointment, a group of
punks had been making completely incoherent statements that they
had murdered Christine Van Hees. They also here and there talked
about black masses, druidism and satanism. The chief suspect of
the murder became Serge Clooth, a drug addicted punk who almost
daily completely changed his previous testimony. He did,
however, seem to know a few details about the murder. In
November 1984, his grandmother testified that a young Brussels
attorney had informed her son (Serge's father) that Serge had
been drugged and liquored up by the judicial police in return
for a scripted testimony. In January 1985, investigating judge
Michel Eloy (also tasked with the CCC bombings; would never meet
the parents of Van Hees) was struck by a heart attack, followed
by a nervous breakdown. In June 1985, Eloy quit his job and
decided to move to the Seychellen. Van Espen, a rookie who had
no experience with murder cases, became the new investigating
magistrate. Van Espen did not contact the parents of Christine
and never visited the crime scene. On November 25, 1985, Van
Espen first met Serge who again stated that his earlier
statements were repeats of what the police officers read out to
him. He was released on November 17, 1987. Around this time
Serge came into contact with Didier de Queve (lawyer of Alexis
Alewaeters and soon Dutroux) and Jean-Paul Dumont (CEPIC lawyer;
accused by different sources of being part of the Nihoul abuse
network), who represented him at the European Court of Human
Rights. In 1991, Belgium was condemned for having detained
Clooth too long without any good reason. Queve talked about the
police rewarding suspects with drugs in exchange for
testimonies. One of the punks, Marc Duriau, had died on August
1, 1986 from an overdose of heroin in the presence of his lawyer
and two other once suspected junks. Clooth and another punk
would later claim that Duriau knew too much and therefore was
killed. The lawyer was later arrested for involvement in drug
business with the punks. At some point, Guy Collignon, one of
two chief investigators of the Christine Van Hees case, picked
up Michel, Christine's younger brother, from school. According
to Michel, Collignon told him: "While I was eating,
Collignon explained to me that the investigation was evolving
towards important, high level people. He said it would be better
to leave those people alone, that he would soon be promoted and
that he would probably not be involved anymore in the
investigation." (PV 100.450, January 19, 1997). In 1996, X1
was shown pictures of the punks, but didn't recognize any of
them. In 1997, according to colleagues, Baudouin Dernicourt,
interviewer and debunker of X-witness Nathalie W., was obsessed
at the time with the murder on Christine Van Hees (in February
1984; and as later described by X1). All he could do was talk
about the murder and how it was bigger than most people thought.
In the summer of 1984, Dernicourt had become afraid that someone
was trying to assassinate him for looking into this affair.
Then, some days later, he claimed to know everything about the
murder, what actually had happened, and that he would never
speak about it again. And indeed he didn't, until 1997 when he
became the chief "re-reader" of the X testimonies under
Commandant Duterme. The Christine Van Hees case was officially
closed in June 1996. The parents of Van Hees were informed
through the mail by Van Espen that the killers of "Claudine"
(Christine) had not been found and that the investigation was
closed. Unfortunately, after heading the investigation for 11
years, Van Espen still didn't know the victim's name. In January
1997, after claims from X1 in late 1996, the Christine Van Hees
case was reopened again with Van Espen once again the examining
magistrate. This is what brought Van Espen into the X1 case. As
soon as X1 began to speak about the murder on her Christine, BOB
officer Aime Bille, of the team of Patriek De Baets, went
through the old dossier of the murder on Christine Van Hees, at
the time headed by examining magistrate Jean-Claude Van Espen.
Bille concluded that many, many mistakes had been made. One of
them was official report (PV) 33797 from April 27, 1987, written
by the Etterbeek police. The PV was described as a tip from an
anonymous informant about the cafe Chez Dolores. However, when
Bille listened to the original tape, he found out that the
informant spoke about the Dolo, not Chez Dolores: "If you
want to keep a little bit informed, then go to the Philippe
Baucq street no. 140, to the Dolo. You might learn something
about the champignoniere... On the corner of the Philippe Baucq
street, the Dolo. If you go there sometimes you might learn
something about the champignoniere. [informant hangs up]."
The Dolo was the favorite hang out of Nihoul, not only once a
business relationship of Van Espen, but also one of the persons
implicated by X1 about the Christine Van Hees murder at the
champignoniere. X1, X2 and Nathalie W. all knew about the Dolo,
to which their abusers had taken them. Other witnesses also
spoke about child abusers and alleged child abusers visiting the
Dolo. Another example from Bille: "I can give a simple
example of something that I found bewildering. On April 5, 1997,
I had to receive the parents [of the late Christine Van Hees] at
my office. The examining magistrate [Van Espen] was present. I
had to show them several objects. I had to ask the mother of
Christine, 13 years after the event, if a bra and panty had
belonged to her daughter. And the father said to the judge: 'The
name of our daughter was not Claudine, it was Christine.' That
says a lot." Van Espen was present at meetings of the
Obelix Cell, the coordinating meetings of the Dutroux affair in
the first half of 1997, together with Andre Vandoren, Patrick
Duinslaeger, Michel Bourlet, Benoit Dejemeppe, Jean Soenen,
Nicole De Rouck, Paule Somers, Jacques Langlois, a number of
gendarme officers, leaders of investigating teams, judicial
police officers and criminal analysts. X1 largely dominated the
agenda of these meetings. At the Obelix meeting of March 7,
1997, Van Espen reported about the Christine Van Hees case. It
was decided that the District Attorney offices in Gent and
Antwerp would temporarily cease their investigations until Van
Espen could reach some kind of a conclusion on the Van Hees
case. Van Espen worked on what many considered the most "easy"
dossier, as no prominent businessmen, magistrates or politicians
were mentioned. Like Langlois, Van Espen supported the
re-reading efforts headed by Commandant Duterme. Searched hard
for evidence of undesired leaks and used flimsy evidence for
that to delay certain investigations, with the hope of
ultimately canceling them. Complained to everyone who wanted to
hear it that the many inspectors assigned to the Dutroux case
took away resources from other important cases. Interview with
Patriek De Baets, Humo, September 28, 1999 and October 5, 1999,
'Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul: the sabotage of an
investigation': "[Col.] Brabant made prosecuter Bourlet
believe that we still had a lot of other work to do in Brussels.
That was nonsense, not a single dossier was waiting there for us
that was as important as the Dutroux case. But befriended
journalists of La Derniere Heure and Le Soir were also served
these lies and used them in their first attacks against
Neufchateau and the investigation into Dutroux and Nihoul: "What
a disgrace, Bourlet gets 350 inspectors, and dossiers involving
billions of franks, like KB-Lux, are neglected! Especially the
Brussels examining magistrate Jean-Claude Van Espen immediately
supported Brabant. His financial dossiers supposedly didn't make
any progress anymore, because all the inspectors worked for
Neufchateau. Not true! At that moment absolutely no one from the
KB-Lux dossier worked for the magistrates of Neufchateau. And my
section also, the 3rd KOS, didn't work on an urgent case at the
time. I still wonder which 'urgent dossiers' Van Espen was
really talking about. It seemed as if even back then he already
anticipated that we would bump into dossiers on which he used to
work. Van Espen knew very well who Annie Bouty was. He had been
her lawyer. And his former brother-in-law, the lawyer Philippe
Deleuze, used to be a partner in Bouty's law firm. Van Espen was
part of a network of friends in politics, magistracy and police
services which Nihoul and Bouty had woven to cover up their
criminal activities." Bille testified that Van Espen
skipped important meetings dealing with the X1 case, was not
interested in reading the X1 dossier and asked investigators to
mail him a summary with a recommendation on what to decide.
Ironically, in the past Van Espen had always worked in harmony
with Patriek De Baets and Aime Bille, and respected their
expertise. De Baets: "Van Espen has been fooled, tricked and
lied to. During that time secret meetings took place between a
small group of BOB officers who wanted to dismantle the X1
investigations at all costs. There, behind our backs, crucial
decisions have been made. Together with substitute magistrate
Paule Somers -a girl to whom they could make up anything- these
BOB officers plotted the murder on the investigation. They knew
Van Espen had little interest in the case and presented the
facts to him entirely different." Anonymous BOB inspector:
"What happened in that period between De Baets and Van Espen
is not normal. Suppose that De Baets and his men indeed
overreached themselves. Suppose that they lost all sense of
reality and indeed gave the Xs far more credit than they
deserved, even then the attitude of Van Espen cannot be
explained. In the past Van Espen has covered up many mistakes of
the financial section, and vice versa probably many more. There
was a bond of mutual trust. Now friends became arch enemies over
night. Nothing has been discussed, it has not even been
attempted to settle this as grown men." After Commandant
Duterme cancelled all of De Baets recommended house searches to
verify parts of X1's testimonies, Van Espen was the one who
actually gave the order to search the home of X1 instead, which
happened on March 20, 1997. It was quite a traumatizing event
for X1. On July 10, Van Espen, Langlois, Duterme and the three
other re-readers secretly came together and decided to
temporarily relieve De Baets and his team from the X-dossier
case. A month later this decision became permanent and together
with Duterme and Langlois, Van Espen goes down in history as one
of the primary individuals behind the closing of the
X-investigations. |
| Jean Soenen |
Prosecutor of the king in Gent from 1993 to
2007. Soenen never appointed an examining magistrate to
investigate the murder on X1's friend Clo (Carine Dellaert),
whom X1 knew when she lived in Gent in the early to mid 1980s.
Refused to allow the BOB in Gent to work with their colleagues
in Neufchateau (De Baets, et al) during his investigation of
Carine Dellaert case. X1 saw the BOB officers in Gent as the
most intimidating she had encountered. Soenen's conclusion from
the start: "These things don't happen, and certainly not in
my district." Soenen continually manipulated the
investigation into the disappearance of Carine Dellaert. Soenen
at a 1998 press conference, rebroadcasted in Zembla (Dutch TV),
'De X-dossiers - Part II', 24:30 (Soenen read up a paper in very
bad Dutch): "... the testimonies of Regina Louf, alias X1,
have been closed definitively. As an overall conclusion it can
be stated that all her testimonies have been totally
unbelievable and the [inaudible] of pure fantasy. Her
testimonies pertaining to the death of Carine Dellaert are
completely wrong. During the investigation it clearly turned out
that the girl Clo, if this person even existed, absolutely does
not identify herself with Carine Dellaert." Soenen was
often sided by substitute magistrate Nicole De Rouck, who
apparently had to ask permission for every step she took. On
January 28, 1998, under the supervision of substitute magistrate
Nicole De Rouck and prosecuter Jean Soenen at the BOB in Gent,
Regina was confronted with her father against her will. Before
her father was allowed in, De Rouck had an interesting
conversation with Regina, which was caught on tape. While Regina
was severely distressed by her parents' statements on TV, De
Rouck began to tell her how her parents still loved her and
other things along that line. This went on for quite some time,
and because De Rouck also forgot to mention that the camera was
running (and a number of other things), some investigators think
that De Rouck tried to get Regina to a point where she would
withdraw her charges. Again, this didn't happen and her father,
who would deny everything, was eventually allowed in. De Rouck
would later state publicly that nothing Regina said checked out
and that she herself pursued the relationship with Tony (an
interesting contradiction all by itself). |
| Danny De Pauw |
Assistant of Patriek De Baets in interviewing
X-witnesses. Only one of the team of De Baets not to be sacked
in mid-July 1997 by commandant Duterme and his superiors.
According to one of the former team members of De Baets,
"[Danny] was the Judas in our team. He apparently saw that his
career was about to go to hell. So he diligently worked from
that day on to put us in a bad daylight in all kinds of notes,
and so to contribute to a climate of suspicion against De
Baets." Even though De Pauw cooperated in the campaign to
discredit X1 he was far less abusive than Eddy Verhaeghen, De
Baets' follow up. X1 had never been very comfortable with De
Pauw, even before he converted, as he had a tendency to be very
nervous. |
| Eddy Verhaeghen |
BOB officer who was in contact with Nihoul
-one of his informants- until the day Nihoul was arrested in the
Dutroux affair. Interview with Patriek De Baets, Humo, September
28, 1999 and October 5, 1999, 'Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul:
the sabotage of an investigation': "Nihoul was a
non-registered informant who had been brought in by a gendarme
officer from Dinant, the late Gerard Vanesse. Two gendarme
officers of the financial section of the BOB Brussels maintained
contact with Nihoul: Eddy Verhaegen and Bernard Meurant. They
used him as a potential informant in investigations into fraud
with telephone cards and mobile phones... Certainly when Eddy
Suys of the judicial police (GP), initial head of the Obelix
cell, who looked in depth at Nihoul, had found out that Nihoul
was in contact with Brussels gendarmerie officers Verhaegen and
Meurant, and that he regularly called to the BOB Brussels. Suys
found out about that last fact when he checked Nihoul's phone
calls made in the months before his arrest. Suys was planning on
doing searches at the BOB and interrogate Verhaegen and Meurant
about their contacts with Nihoul. Lieutenant-Colonel Brabant
absolutely wanted to prevent that." Like Patriek De Baets,
assigned to the Neufchateau cell under Commandant Duterme.
Involved in the Dutroux and X-dossier investigation. Replaced
Patriek De Baets, who, in mid 1997, had been fired along with
all of his team members as the chief interviewer of X1. The only
person of the team of De Baets that was not dismissed, Danny De
Pauw, became his assistant (and the only person X1 never really
trusted). Eddy also worked a lot with Wïlly Vandeput, another
zealous "re-reader". Together, Eddy and Danny radically changed
the way in which X1 was handled: A) They organized an informal
talk outside the bureau and without any notes or video being
taken (a report was written after they got back at the bureau);
B) They indirectly told X1 that they weren't interested in the
truth: "we just want our pay check at the end of the month";
C) They stopped doing any kind of field work to check out the
claims of X1. She somehow had to revisit all these places
herself and subpoena the suspects, in order to provide some
"evidence"; D) They insinuated that X1 also must have had some
fun with Tony, because, they asked, "weren’t you in love
with him?"; E) They told X1 that her experiences couldn't
have been that bad, because she had a family now, a nice house,
kids, and is laughing again; F) They began to interrogate -
instead of interview - her friend Tania who had nothing to do
with the case besides having made the initial call to Connerotte
and De Baets. After Tania was asked to come to the bureau, it
turned out that the interrogation took place in a readily
accessible room with the files of X1 littered all over the
place. The investigators insinuated that she must have known De
Baets a lot longer, that she probably was involved in the same
network as Regina, and that she was a prostitute. Tania felt
very much intimidated at the end of the conversation. Eddy and
Danny also grilled Corry, the friend of X4 who knew Tania. But
even after their intimidating interrogation sessions, Eddy and
Danny had no evidence at all of a tiny conspiracy among these
women against the state, nor had they any evidence that these
women somehow unintentionally hyped up each other's experiences.
Nevertheless, in an official report was given to examining
magistrate Van Espen, the interrogators concluded that:
"Multiple elements in the investigation confirm that there
exists a connection between these people." Whatever these
elements (besides 1) were that connected X1, X4 and their
friends with each other has never been clarified. |
| Baudouin Dernicourt |
Implicated in the theft of 1800 pounds or 816
kg of dynamite in the stone quarry of Ecaussines in the night of
June 2-3, 1984. This theft in turn is suspected to be linked to
the CCC bombings of 1984 and 1985. The Cellules Communistes
Combattantes, or CCC, officially was an extremist leftist group.
However, many people generally assume this was just another
chapter in the Gladio history. In 1985, after hitting a car on
the road, arrested for illegal target practice with his gun.
Besides a two-day suspension, he was not prosecuted at all. Many
people assumed the career of this officer was over after this
second incident. The opposite was true, however. Dernicourt was
promoted and soon ended up with the BOB. Rumors existed that he
had been a member of the neo-Nazi Westland New Post, but did
take legal steps to crush these rumors. According to colleagues,
Dernicourt was obsessed at the time with the murder on Christine
Van Hees (in February 1984; and as later described by X1). All
he could do was talk about the murder and how it was bigger than
most people thought. In the summer of 1984 he was afraid that
someone was trying to assassinate him for looking into this
affair. Then, some days later, he claimed to know everything
about the murder, what actually had happened, and that he would
never speak about it again. And indeed he didn't, until 1997
when he became the chief "re-reader" of the X testimonies under
Commandant Duterme. In all the official reports he wrote for the
Neufchateau cell he never indicated he had more in depth
knowledge about this case. Dernicourt did everything he could to
ridicule X1, with Danny De Pauw and especially Eddy Verhaeghen.
Involved with Cerefino Alvarez and the abusive Eddy Verhaeghen
in writing down and researching the claims made about Chateau
des Amerois. Took over the interviewing of Nathalie W. in early
February 1997, after Theo Vandyck had suffered a stroke, and
together with Pourbaix turned it into interrogations. Nathalie
W. trusted Theo Vandyck, but not long after these two new
investigators literally began intimidating and destabilizing
(not very hard) her, she ceased cooperating with the BOB.
|
| Philippe Pourbaix |
Took over the interviewing of Nathalie W. in
early February 1997, after Theo Vandyck had suffered a stroke,
and together with Dernicourt turned it into interrogations.
Nathalie W. trusted Theo Vandyck, but not long after these two
new investigators literally began intimidating and destabilizing
(not very hard) her, she ceased cooperating with the BOB. In
March, after Nathalie had withdrawn from the investigation,
Pourbaix contacted the neighbor of Nathalie and Cecile, warning
her that she shouldn't leave her children around Nathalie. The
neighbor recorded a phone call with Pourbaix and gave it to
Nathalie, who in turn confronted Pourbaix with it. The result
was that Nathalie's house was searched, the tape confiscated and
the neighbor threatened with possible legal steps for having
violated secrecy agreements. Cecile Z., a police officer who
lived together with Nathalie W., wrote: "Pourbaix just kept
repeating that everything Nathalie said had been investigated
and that nothing checked out... He suggested to me that I go
through the stuff of Nathalie and do my own investigation that
way... [I know hard evidence is necessary], but claiming, like
Pourbaix did, that Nathalie is fantasist, a psychopath, a
mythomaniac and the biggest manipulator in the world, that is
way out of line. Believe me, these are not interpretations,
these are words I literally heard." Ludmilla, a
psychologist at Botte's foundation (who had helped Nathalie W.),
concurred: "I think this was a set up and that we were
dealing with disinformation, which not only was meant to
destabilize the victim, but also to discredit her in her own
environment." In early April 1997, Duterme began to worry
about Nathalie telling everything she knew to family, friends
and reporters. Within two weeks, however, the media began a full
scale attack on Nathalie instead. Theo Vandyck, the early
interviewer who she trusted, had recovered enough from his
stroke to find out what was happening at Neufchateau. It turned
out that Pourbaix and his colleagues had contacted the media in
an effort to discredit Nathalie. When Vandyck pointed out to
Pourbaix that he risked being prosecuted for violating official
secrets, he was told that Duterme and Col. Brabant of the BOB
had given their full support for the media-campaign. According
to Vandyck, Pourbaix called Nathalie a "whore" who was
manipulating the whole Dutroux investigation. Pourbaix for some
reason had become so upset with Nathalie that he began to use
her picture at the shooting range for target practice. Nathalie
had finally found a job in mid-1998, a year after her dossier
had been closed. Within days the gendarmerie stopped by
informing her superiors that she needed to be interrogated for
something pertaining to the Dutroux-case. In the past she had
always been contacted personally in a very discrete manner,
either by mail, by phone or a pager she always carried with her.
This unnecessary move on behalf of the gendarmerie resulted in
the loss of her job. |
| Serge Winkel |
Together with Danny Lesciauskas, Winkel was
the interviewer of the paedophile Jean-Paul Raemaekers during
the time that this person began talking about Guy Focant and
Jumet (in October 1996). Raemaekers' statements, in which Winkel
and Lesciauskas should have detected many contradictions, were
used by Marnette and others to start the pointless digs in
Jumet. Winkel was appointed to interview victim-witness X3 in
November 1996. X3 would give 4 long talks about her history of
child abuse, before her interviewers wrote down the first report
(on December 10). Even after this 5th interview her interviewers
were under orders to write down as little as possible, because
she mentioned members of the royal family. It is an unwritten
rule in Belgium to terminate any investigation in which the
royal family becomes a suspect. The summary of her interview of
May 26, 1997 (PV 151.688) ends with the interesting sentence:
"Identical interview as 151.829, but she doesn't mention
royal personalities." In PV 151.829, dated June 2, 1997 (at
least, the summary), she mentioned Prince Charles of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, King Baudouin and "King Albert" (whether she
meant Albert I or Albert II is not known). |
| Jacques Pignolet |
On August 20, 1997, Commandant Duterme
decided to sack De Baets and his team from the X-dossiers all
together. That same day Duterme filed the complaint against De
Baets and his colleagues that they have been manipulating the
X-witnesses during the interviews, allegedly leading to "rumors"
of high level child abuse networks. Jacques Pignolet was
appointed as the magistrate to investigate these complaints.
Starting at the same time, De Baets was attacked by Baron de
Bonvoisin and some of his associates, and made up claims that
subsequently also had to be investigated by Pignolet. In June
2000, however, De Baets and his team members were fully
acquitted of any charges that they had been manipulating X1
during interviews. They also were acquitted of all the
accusations made by Baron de Bonvoisin & Co. Pignolet's team of
investigators, not to mention Col. Hubert Fransen, younger
brother of Lt.-Gen. Herman Fransen, head of the Gendarmerie, had
found absolutely nothing after almost three years of research.
The X-dossiers were not reopened as a result of that.
|
| Marc Toussaint |
Wrote the 2010 book 'Tous manipulés?', which
is critical of X1, De Baets, Connerotte and Bourlet, while
protecting Michel Nihoul and the establishment that killed the
investigation and-or was implicated in the abuse. This indicates
Toussaint may have played a role in leaking VM1's story and also
that he acted as a mole when he provided documents to reporters
of De Morgen newspaper.
Young gendarme officer who was the runner of
victim-witness VM1. In the presence of Michel Bourlet, Marc
Toussaint and Yves Zimmer
(head of the sexual abuse department of the
Brussels police from 1982 to 1987; linked to the abuse network),
VM1 emotionally testified on February 16, 1997 how he had been a
child prostitute for Phillipe Cryns in and around Le Mirano and
how he had witnessed child murders and assassinations. Somehow,
within two days of this meeting word got out that VM1 was
talking to police. VM1 was threatened to shut up and to hand
over any evidence he had if he wanted to live longer than a
week. Cryns used to be a member of Cercle des Nations, together
with Paul Vanden Boeynants, Baron de Bonvoisin and Pinay Circle
founder Jean Violet. |
| Rene Michaux |
Most incompetent officer in the Gendarmerie
ever. Head of Operation Othello, a cell of detectives that
monitored all of Dutroux's movements after suspicions had been
raised against Dutroux that he was the kidnapper of Julie and
Melissa. The operation ran from August 10, 1995 and was shut
down in January 1996 while Dutroux was temporarily in jail. An
and Eefje were kidnapped by Dutroux on August 22, 1995, and
locked on the first floor of his home. Michaux's Othello
observers didn't notice anything. On August 25, 1995, the
19-year-old Eefje managed to grab her clothes, crawl out of the
bathroom window and shout for help, several seconds before
Dutroux pulled her back in. The observers of Operation Othello,
who had pointed a camera towards Dutroux's house, never noticed
anything. On September 4, 1995, Dutroux's mother, who advised
against the 1992 release of her son, anonymously informed
Michaux that the neighbors of Dutroux were very suspicious about
his activities. Windows were blackened out, he was always making
noise in the basement, the garden was filled with used car
tires, and two girls "of 16 or 18 years old" were
recently been seen in his garden. The girls had never been seen
during daylight. This information somehow didn't make it to the
investigating team that was working on the case of An and Eefje,
who were 17 and 19 years old.
Michaux headed a September 28, 1995 meeting of
different BOB brigades which dealt with the recent phenomenon of
occupants of white Mercedesses following and photographing
schoolgirls. At that time, reports had come in from Bergen, La
Louviere and Charleroi, and soon 15 other reports would come in
from Couvin, Thuin, Chimay and Beaumont. In the afternoon of
December 13, after a disastrous search in Dutroux's Marcinelle
home, Michaux met with police officer Christian Dubois in La
Louviere. This officer informed him about even more cases of
white Mercedesses following schoolgirls. Dubois also turned out
to have an informant, separate from Claude Thirault or his
handler, gendarme officer Christophe Pettens, who were known to
Michaux, who had informed Dubois that the white Mercedesses
belonged to a paedophile network centered around a company
called Asco in Schaarbeek or Sint-Gillis. According to the
informant, the occupants of the white Mercedesses were putting
together catalogs of pictures of children. Their clients could
pick one of these kids, which would then be kidnapped, locked up
in Belgium for a while, and then exported to eastern Europe or
Thailand. The price for each child would be 300,000 franks or
about 7500 euros. During their conversation Michaux told Dubois
about Dutroux. Dubois recalled: "I remember that Michaux
told me that Dutroux went to countries in eastern Europe... The
sums he mentioned for the kidnappings were similar to those
given to me by my informant... Even today this still keeps me
awake at night. I feel responsible. Afterwards, in 1996, I
looked into Dutroux... You just felt it. This was the man we
were looking for! I should have bought a crowbar and a gun and,
against all regulations, entered that house in Marcinelle; and
tear down everything until I had found those kids... It would
have been worth the risk [of losing my job]." Dubois
strongly felt that he and Michaux had independently stumbled on
the same network and was sure that his colleague was going to
take action. This wasn't the case, however, which later also
greatly surprised the Verwilghen Commission. Michaux made a note
of Dubois' information and simply left it there. In the mean
time, Dubois was ridiculed by his boss, commissioner Monique
Devodder. In January she even went public in a tv broadcast on
Au Nom de la Loi (famous for their later campaign
against the X File witnesses) to denounce the reports about the
white Mercedesses as unsubstantiated rumors. Dubois was then
transferred from field work to a support division, but this
didn't keep him from doing investigative work on Dutroux and
Asco. On June 18, 1996, Dubois sent a fax to police commissioner
Daniel Lamoque informing him about the connections between Asco,
Dutroux and the disappearance of Julie and Melissa. No reply was
given by Lamoque and he would later give a rather bizarre
testimony in which he explained that Dubois had written that the
men in the white Mercedesses were interested in "mineurs", which
he interpreted as "only boys" and therefore couldn't have had a
connection with the case of Julie and Melissa. Asco (Achats
Services Commerces) later turned out to be a very interesting
company. It was incorporated on July 2, 1991, primarily by
Jean-Louis Delamotte, a friend and regular business partner of
Michel Nihoul. Nihoul, Bernard Weinstein, Michel Lelievre and
Michele Martin (not Dutroux) had all been spotted on a regular
basis in the immediate surroundings of the company. People in
the neighborhood had also noted that Nihoul was often surrounded
by young negro girls and had the impression that these girls
were on transit. Five mattresses and some baby milk were found
inside the company's headquarters after it had gone bankrupt in
1994. Delamotte's company Soparauto, registered at the same
address, owned 5 white mercedesses, all with French license
plates, as had been reported.
Michaux headed the two searches of Dutroux's
houses in December 1995 and failed to find Julie and Melissa (An
and Eefje had already been killed by then) during these two
searches. During the first search, when Michaux and locksmith
Alain Lejeune (this person did not know anything about Dutroux
being a suspect in the kidnapping of girls) were in Dutroux's
basement, they heard a few interesting sounds. Michaux testified
he did not hear children's voices, but only a faint murmur (in
other cases he clearly said he heard children's voices). On the
other hand, Lejeune testified: "I remember almost nothing of
the house search, except one thing: when I went down with Rene
Michaux and handed him a searchlight, we both clearly heard two
children's voices. Of two little girls. One said three or four
words, the other briefly answered; one word of one syllable. It
lasted a few seconds. At that moment, a colleague of Michaux
came running down the stairs making a lot of noise. Michaux
shouted: "Tais-toi - Silence!" We heard nothing after that
anymore." According to Lejeune, the voices were very close
by, but they could not find anything in the basement. Michaux
identified the location where Julie and Melissa apparently were
hidden as a water tank and didn't feel like investigating it.
Michaux claimed he just assumed it must have been the neighbor's
children who were watching the investigators as they entered the
house of Dutroux. Unfortunately for Michaux, Lejeune, the
locksmith who was working on the lock of the front door for
quite some time after the investigators had entered the house,
hadn't seen any children: "It was December 13, a weekday,
and it wasn't during a vacation." (quotes from 2004,
Nieuwsblad, 'Locksmith: "I heard two little girls' - Locksmith
contradicts theory of Gendarme officer Michaux). Michaux somehow
didn't think that Dutroux's strange basement was worth exploring
even though it was known that he had been working on his
basement, which was L-shaped instead of the usual square design.
The plaster- and woodwork in the corner responsible for the
L-shape was much newer than the rest of the basement, and behind
them the cells for the children had been hidden. A knock on this
part of the wall would have produced a hollow sound. On top of
that, normal communication was possible with someone locked up
in one of the cells, as the parents of Julie Lejeune had
demonstrated. Besides hearing children's voices, Michaux found a
number of videotapes. On one was written "Perdu de Vue, Marc", a
reference to the tv program 'Lost From Sight' which dealt with
missing children, and on which Julie and Melissa had also
featured. On two other videotapes Dutroux could be seen
rebuilding his basement and raping a 14-year-old Slovakian or
Czech girl (facts that came out only 3 years later). The tapes
weren't watched by Michaux and were given back to Dutroux's
wife, Michele Martin. In the basement Michaux also found vaginal
cream, chloroform, a speculum (medical instrument used to dilate
bodily orifices) and chains, which also didn't seem cause for
alarm. Eight months later, on August 13, 1996, Michaux searched
Dutroux's Marcinelle home again from 14.20 to 17.20, right after
Dutroux had been arrested. In this case he failed to find Sabine
and Laetitia, and couldn't even find the letters Sabine had left
under Dutroux's carpet. In May 2004, Michel Bourlet said:
"Sabine and Laetitia have spent 48 hours too long in the cage in
Marcinelle. Their suffering could have been two days shorter.
Why? That's what I've been asking myself in the past eight
years." Bourlet went on to criticize Michaux's integrity
and one of the things he asked was: "Why didn't Michaux find
the letters of Sabine which she had hidden under the carpet?"
Michaux reacted by saying: "I was searching for Laetitia,
not for some letters. I sure wouldn't have found Laetitia under
the carpet." Michaux went on to call Bourlet a liar and
soon was contemplating to sue him for libel. He also vaguely
insinuated a conspiracy by the gendarmerie and top politicians
to "get him". In reaction to his complete failure to find any of
the girls or notice any of the evidence, the parents of Melissa
Russo filed a complaint against Michaux. The parents of Julie
Lejeune inspected the basement of Dutroux and also openly
criticized Michaux and his team. Met the controversial Georges
Zicot in a cafeteria in December 1996. Zicot said to him:
"Don't worry. When you were standing in that basement the
children were already dead." Dutroux was arrested 7 days
before Michaux did the first house search during which the
voices were heard. It is unknown how much food Dutroux left
them, so Zicot's statement is speculative at the very least.
Michaux later became a police commissioner. Jan Hasaers for
Parti du Travail de Belgique, 'The gendarmerie controls the new
police, but who controls the gendarmerie?':
"In her annual report of 1999 the Comite P admits
that her control over the gendarmerie is virtually non-existent
and that the gendarmerie does what it pleases in judicial
investigations, even forging evidence if necessary. Comite P had
to investigate what had happened to five of the 92 videos of
Dutroux. These were confiscated during a house search on
December 13, 1995, 6 months after Julie and Melissa had been
kidnapped. In early 1996 the audio-video center of the
Gendarmerie had been given orders to copy the tapes. In early
1999, two gendarme officers, at the orders of the examining
magistrate in Neufchateau, for the first time watched three of
the videos and the copies thereof. What turned out: "The
original amateur videos were not on the copied tapes. Different
scenes -most notably those of Marc Dutroux working in his house
in Marcinelle or of a naked girl with her legs spread- were not
on the copies. [Comité P, Bijzonder verslag 1999, punt 5.9.]" |
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