Posted on 02/29/2004 5:37:12 PM PST by dighton
Shielded behind bullet-proof glass, Marc Dutroux finally goes on trial today for a string of paedophile kidnappings and murders that horrified Europe.
The case shook Belgium to its foundations almost eight years ago. As the world media converges on the sleepy Ardennes town of Arlon over the next three months, the Belgian justice system will be just as much in the dock as Dutroux and his three alleged associates.
The state is accused of botching the investigation at every stage and ignoring copious evidence that Dutroux was working as a procurer for a child prostitution network.
Even the most basic facts surrounding the murder of four girls are still unclear, while some members of their families have boycotted the trial as a charade.
The outcome of the case is scarcely in doubt for Dutroux, 47, an electrical handy-man, drug dealer and car thief.
The bodies of An Marchal, 17, and Eefje Lambrecks, 19, were found gagged, bound and brutalised in rubbish sacks on his land in August 1996. The two Flemish girls had been drugged and kidnapped on their way back from a party while on holiday in Ostend.
Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, both eight, starved apparently after languishing for 14 months in Dutroux’s dank cell, though nobody knows for certain.
He left them to their fate when he was jailed for three and a half months for other crimes, claiming later that he made desperate efforts to save the girls before burying their bodies in a ditch.
Dutroux’s ex-wife, Michelle Martin, visited the house to feed the German shepherd dogs left on guard. But she said she was too frightened to go into the dungeon.
While the girls were wasting away, police files were bulging with informant reports that Dutroux was offering up to £3,000 for young girls and was building a network of dungeons and tunnels on his five properties to stash them away.
His own mother had written to the authorities warning that her “vile” son was hiding girls in his houses as part of a human trafficking business.
Responding to a tip-off, the police carried out a desultory search of his house at Marcinelle, without infra-red gear. They failed to find the dungeon. A policeman thought he heard a child whimpering, but gave up when the sound stopped.
Dutroux already had a long record, beginning in 1983 with the sexual torture of a 58-year-old woman at the point of a bayonet. In 1989 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for multiple child rape but was let free by the parole board three years later, supposedly to take care of his grandmother.
The prosecutor-general of Mons protested. But he was overruled by the justice minister, Melchior Wathelet, who went on to become Belgium’s judge at the European Court.
Official ineptitude was so systematic that the families suspect Dutroux was being protected by corrupt officials, either because of blackmail or collusion in the child prostitution rings.
Carine Russo, Melissa’s mother, suspects that the story of her daughter’s death has been tailored to support the theory that Dutroux was abducting girls solely for his own use.
She cannot understand how two eight-year-old girls could survive 106 days in a cold, dank cell underground without food and water when the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands lasted only two months?
The autopsy report showed that Melissa’s rape wounds dated from the time Dutroux was in prison, indicating that other men were involved.
A DNA study of 6,000 hairs found in the cellar, “fiercely resisted for years”, detected samples belonging to 26 different people. This has not been explained.
Mrs Russo is furious and claims that the inquiry has been structured to prevent evidence of a broader network coming to light. “It would be betrayal of our daughter to take part in this theatre,” she said.
Dutroux has hinted at the existence of a criminal network but has always refused to offer hard facts, alluding to violent reprisals in prison if he speaks. He denies killing any of the girls but admits murdering a French accomplice, Bernard Weinstein.
The original judge, Jean-Marc Connerotte, was investigating links between Dutroux and organised crime in Charleroi when he was pulled off the case in October 1996 for alleged conflict of interest after dining with the families of the victims. His dismissal prompted the biggest protest in Belgian history.
More than 300,000 Belgians took to the streets of Brussels in a silent march dressed in white, while workers at Renault and Volkswagen plants went on spontaneous strikes.
Firemen sprayed the courts of justice with foam in contempt. The Christian-Democrat power structure that had run Belgium for half a century was swept away at the next election.
In the end, the case mounted by judicial authorities today is a mix of two contradictory themes, reflecting the seven-year battle between the judge, Jacques Langlois, and the prosecutor, Michel Bourlet , who once said he would get to the truth “if they let me”.
While Mr Langlois calls Dutroux an “isolated pervert”, Mr Bourlet has drawn his net as wide as possible. He won an internal battle to secure charges against Michel Nihoul, a pimp and nightclub owner, known for providing girls at high society orgies.
Nihoul insists that he used only adult women, which is legal.
He is charged with a role in the abduction of Laetitia Delhez, one of the six girls known to have passed through Dutroux’s dungeon.
Dutroux’s wife, and his “side-kick” Michel Lelievre are also charged with their alleged role in abductions, leading to four deaths.
If the case against Nihoul is proven, it would be very hard to square with claims that Dutroux was acting alone.
For ordinary Belgians the insurrectionary mood of 1996 has given way to bitter fatalism.
Over 70 per cent said last year that they had no confidence in their justice system. The case going to court today is unlikely to repair any damage.
Why do we even acknowledge the existence of such a nation of incompetents?
Their only useful purpose seems to be to continue existing as the butt of French jokes...
No, in another 100 years Europe will be Muslim, and they'll be using this as evidence of how corrupt the continent was before Allah helped them cleanse it.
I feel so sorry for the victims' families - the pain they must suffer knowing what their girls underwent but also, on top of that, dealing with the corruption and complicity of the local officials involved in this case! It's a wonder Doutroux hasn't been lynched by now.
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