Posted on 01/22/2002 5:00:23 PM PST by dighton
BELGIUM was warned yesterday that it risked a "second revolution" if it did not bring Marc Dutroux to justice swiftly on charges of child murder.
The warning followed an extraordinary interview given by Dutroux, a serial rapist accused of kidnapping and murdering four young girls. He accused prosecutors of covering up the full extent of the paedophile scandal that rocked Belgium six years ago.
In prison awaiting trial, Dutroux told an undercover television reporter that he was not acting alone but was procuring children for a criminal network.
He said: "I had regular contacts with the people who formed this ring. But the authorities have not wanted to investigate the leads." Dutroux claimed that the kidnapped children were not intended for his own use.
The interview was carried out surreptitiously by Senator Jean-Marie Dedecker, who used parliamentary privilege to smuggle a journalist into the prison with a hidden recorder, masquerading as his chauffeur.
Mr Dedecker said: "Why is Dutroux still waiting trial after six years? What is going on? If this is dragged on for another year, we're going to have a second revolution."
The case is a harrowing saga of police and judicial incompetence. Dutroux raped children for several years in the 1980s, but served only a short prison term before being released with a £1,400-a-month invalid's pension.
He has been awaiting trial since 1996 when he was arrested and charged with abducting, torturing, raping and murdering four girls, including Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, both eight.
They were held in chains and starved to death in a makeshift dungeon in one of Dutroux's homes after he was arrested on other charges. Repeated tips that he was trafficking in girls were ignored.
In a routine search, police heard whimpering through the walls of the house but said they thought it must be children playing nearby. Two girls aged 17 and 19 were later found buried on his land. Two more escaped from another dungeon.
The investigating magistrate, Jacques Langlois, has dismissed evidence of a broader network as inconclusive. He has refused requests for DNA testing on 6,000 samples of hair found in Dutroux's house, saying it would cause further delay.
A new book by Paul Belien, a lawyer, claims that investigations stalled when testimony started pointing to people in very high places.
The original magistrate, who wanted to pursue a broad inquiry, was removed after eating a meal with families of the victims. The decision led to 300,000 people taking to the streets in the biggest protest march in Belgian history.
The justice minister was forced to resign after Dutroux escaped from court. Several prosecutors, police officers, and witnesses have committed suicide and crucial evidence has disappeared.
The case led to the downfall of the corrupt party system that had run the country since the Second World War.
For the reformist government of Guy Verhofstadt, the prime minister, the trial has become a test. Seventy per cent of Belgians say they have no confidence in the criminal justice system.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001.
I am sick of hearing Europeans lecture us on how to treat criminals.
I've always noticed how the Belgian government calls for more fascism. Making the world safe for pedophiles, what a noble frickin' goal.
That society has been in decadent decline for most of a century, and the near-disappearance of Christianity post World War II has accelerated the decline.
"Nature abhors a vacuum," and vacuous HUMAN nature is the most fertile playground for Evil that there is. There's no such thing as "having no faith." If you don't stand with God, then you stand with the Devil, pure and simple.
You've hit this dead on the nose. For some reason, this sort of sickening behaviour seems to be more prevalent among Europeans of privilege. There must be something in the genes as they do seem to breed within their own kind.
I think it's rather sinister that Belgium, perhaps the most decadent and corrupt of any European country, is becoming the new capital of Europe. Things haven't changed that much since Conrad wrote "Heart of Darkness" and referred to Brussells as a "Whited Sepulcher." If you read that story with attention, you will find that the last scene in Brussels is even more sinister than the scenes in the Congo.
Clinton was very much at home with these people, but he was probably a bit too crude and obvious for their liking.
By 2100, the entire EU is projected to have a majority Muslim population : Italy and Spain by 2040, then France, Denmark, and Germany, all the rest by the turn of the century.
Or sexual deviants!
I'm very interested...source...please?
FReegards,
FMCDH
Spot on!
Sounds Clintonesque to me.
I'm on hold with the help desk.
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