Belgian Sex Ring 'Ignored' ("Belgian Establishment.. Linked to Paedophile Activities,Murder,Coverup)

A Belgian television station has broadcast a clandestine interview with the paedophile murder suspect, Marc Dutroux, who is awaiting trial on charges of abducting, raping and killing four girls.

I maintained regular contact with people in this ring. However, the law does not want to investigate this lead Marc Dutroux

Dutroux was arrested in 1996 in a case which rocked the nation. Two of the children who he abducted starved to death in makeshift dungeons under his house.

In the interview with the Flemish-language station VTM Dutroux admitted locking up the girls but did not acknowledge responsibility for their deaths.

He also said he had been part of a wider paedophile network but said the justice system did not want to pursue it.

"There is a well-grounded [paedophile] ring," he said. "I maintained regular contact with people in this ring. However, the law does not want to investigate this lead."

Dutroux has already served time for a paedophile conviction. He was set free in 1992 after serving three years of a 13-year sentence for raping five girls.

"I kept Julie and Melissa captive at my place, so I'm not innocent. I kept An and Eefje captive at my place, so I'm not innocent. I'm absolutely guilty," Dutroux said.

But he has always maintained that he did not murder the girls. He accuses his second wife, Michelle Martin, of failing to feed Julie and Melissa.

Dutroux's trial is due to start next year. It has been delayed several times as a result of the extensive investigation into the girls' deaths.

This has included forensic tests on some 6,000 hair samples taken from Dutroux's basement to try and establish whether the girls had any other visitors. P> Conspiracy theories

But the BBC's Shirin Wheeler in Brussels says the interview is bound to fuel theories that the delay in bringing Dutroux to trial is because of a cover-up by members of the Belgian establishment allegedly linked to paedophile activities.

The parents of two of the young victims - An Marchal and Melissa Russo - say they are deeply unhappy Dutroux has been interviewed.

Liberal Senator Dedecker is now facing disciplinary action by his party for allowing the journalist to pass himself off as his driver.

Senator Jean Marie Dedecker:
"The Belgium public have a right to know why Dutroux hasn't gone to court"

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BBC Brussels Correspondent, Angus Roxburgh: "experts says these are some of the worst scences they have ever witnessed"

A senior Belgian officer, Marcel Van Lacke, said at least five adults were suspected of involvement in one ring, two of them Dutch, adding the case was linked with several other Europe-wide inquiries.

Police have distributed the pictures of 340 seen on pornographic videos seized at the end of last year in the Belgian town of Temse. Two men were arrested.

They hope this will help establish whether any of the children are registered as missing in Belgium.

The man in whose house the videos were found has been released after three months of questioning and the thrust of the investigation has now moved to Portugal where the cassettes originated.

Meanwhile police in the Netherlands said they were investigating claims that a child pornography network has been exploiting children as young as one and disseminating their pictures via the Internet.

The extent of child pornography on the Net is an unknown quantity Police originally suspected they had uncovered a network but investigators now say the cases in Belgium and Holland are not linked.

The Dutch ring was uncovered after the Belgian anti-pornography group, Morkhoven, reported the discovery of thousands of pornographic pictures stored on computer discs in an apartment in the town of Zandvoort near Amsterdam.

The group also discovered lists of American, Russian, German and Israeli citizens, who, it says, received the material over the Internet.

The Morkhoven group was set up after the arrest of the child killer, Marc Dutroux in a case that caused a wave of revulsion in Belgium and abroad.

There have been a series of child abuse scandals in Belgium in the past two years which have led to public protests and reforms of the police and justice system.

Experts say the recent discoveries appear to have exposed one of the most extensive child pornography networks ever discovered.

Anger over child rapist interview

January 22, 2002 Posted: 1116 GMT

Victims' relatives have long claimed that Dutroux was part of a paedophile network

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BRUSSELS, Belgium -- An unauthorised televised interview with a notorious Belgian paedophile has been criticised by the father of a teenage girl believed to have been killed by the child rapist.

Marc Dutroux admitted in the interview, broadcast on Monday, that he was guilty of locking up two young girls who starved to death in his cellar.

But he stopped short of accepting responsibility for their murders according to comments captured on an audio recording made by a television journalist smuggled into his cell by a Belgian senator.

Dutroux has been awaiting trial since 1996 when he was arrested and charged with abducting, torturing, raping and murdering four girls, including two eight-year-olds -- Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo -- who starved to death in makeshift cells under one of his houses.

"I kept Julie and Melissa captive at my place, so I'm not innocent. I kept An and Eefje (teenagers An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks) captive at my place, so I'm not innocent. I'm absolutely guilty," Dutroux said.

Dutroux, who has always professed his innocence of the 1996 murder charges, has already served time for a paedophile conviction. He was released from prison in 1992 after serving three years of a 13-year sentence for raping five girls.

The father of An Marchal, whose body was found buried at another property belonging to Dutroux in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi, told Reuters he was angry the child rapist had been interviewed.

"I didn't want to hear it anymore. I can't listen to his voice. It makes me so sick," Paul Marchal said, adding that Dutroux said little that was new. P> 'Regular contact'

Flemish television channel VTM would not say whether Dutroux knew he was being interviewed by a journalist.

But in excerpts VTM made available in advance, Dutroux said there was no doubt that a network "with various criminal ramifications" existed.

"I was in regular contact with people belonging to that network. But the justice system doesn't want to investigate this lead," he was recorded by the VTM journalist as saying.

Forensic tests were recently carried out on 6,000 hair samples taken from the basement cell of Dutroux's house to try to identify if the captive girls had had other visitors. The inquiry has delayed the case coming to court. A trial, postponed several times, is due to start next year.

Gino Russo, father of Melissa, also reacted with horror. "It's indecent," he told The Guardian newspaper. "He says that he kept Julie and Melissa, so that's rape, kidnapping and sadism for starters. He talks about a network when we are already at the end of the investigation.

"It is now up to the judge to draw up the [trial] plan with what he has. If he says there is a network but offers no further details nothing will change. But if he cooperates then maybe the investigation will be restarted." > Dutroux's revelations are likely to stoke conspiracy theories of a Belgian cover-up by people in high places allegedly linked to the paedophile scandal.

The case traumatised Belgium, drawing 250,000 on to the streets in protest at widespread police incompetence during a 14-month search for Julie and Melissa.

In one case, police in one region failed to pass on information about Dutroux's activities to investigators in another searching for the two girls.

***Corrupt Belgium and other governments have been tring hard tp protect these paedophiles***

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Belgium concerned over paedophile list

Thursday, 10 August, 2000, 14:21 GMT 15:21 UK

Dutroux has been charged with child-sex offences

Authorities in Belgium are trying to prevent the circulation of a list of suspected or convicted paedophiles.

The efforts follow the decision of a small French-language magazine in Luxembourg to publish the list of 50 such people, resident in Belgium.

The Investigator's list follows in the steps of the British newspaper the News of the World, whose publication of names and addresses of alleged paedophiles has led to rowdy protests over the past week.

Paedophilia is a particularly sensitive issue in Belgium, following a number of high-profile child abuse cases in recent years - most notably that of Marc Dutroux, who has been arrested on charges of abducting and abusing six girls, and is awaiting trial for murder.

Warning people

Alhough a Belgian court issued an emergency injunction against The Investigator, copies of the magazine containing the list had already been posted to subscribers in Belgium.

The magazine's editor, Jean Nicolas said the decision was aimed at warning the public.

He told the Belga news agency that the list had been obtained from the files of Jacques Langlois, the investigating magistrate in the Dutroux case.

Mr Nicolas said the list contained only names, and no photographs - either of the alleged paedophiles or their victims - had been published. P> However, a Belgian court termed the decision an abuse of human rights and presumption of innocence.

In its injunction order, passed on Wednesday, the court said Mr Nicholas faced a fine of $20,000 for each copy that contained the list.

The Investigator, which began publication a year ago, has a circulation of about 1,000.

Most subscribers receive their copy through the mail.

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