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Justice at last
Belgium's 'trial of the century' has kicked off in the sleepy Walloon town of Arlon. After seemingly endless delays, notorious paedophile, rapist and suspected child killer Marc Dutroux is finally coming face-to-face with a jury. Katleen Maes takes stock of the story that has traumatised a country.
March 2004
Seven and a half years ago, in the middle of
what would normally have been the news silly-season, Belgian police made a
series of gruesome discoveries – in which three pairs of girls were the
unfortunate victims – that have haunted the country ever since. Since that
fateful summer of 1996, An and Eefje, Julie and Mélissa, and Sabine and
Laetitia have tragically become household names in Belgium.
It all started on 13 August 13 1996 when
repeated sex offender and common crook Marc Dutroux was arrested – along with
his wife Michelle Martin and heroin-addicted accomplice Michel Lelièvre – on
suspicion of having kidnapped Laetitia Delhez just four days earlier. Soon
after, Michel Nihoul, a shady businessman with political connections, was also
arrested for his suspected involvement in the case.
A couple of days after his arrest, two
miserable girls, Laetitia and Sabine Dardenne – kidnapped on 28 May 1996 – were
freed from a cage in Dutroux's cellar in Marcinelle, near Charleroi in Wallonia.
A shaken Sabine repeatedly said, "I'm going to see mother again."
Tragically, worse horrors were to follow. Two
days later, police investigators found the starved bodies of Julie Lejeune and
Mélissa Russo, who disappeared on 24 June 1995, in a deep hole in the garden of
Dutroux's Sars-la-Bussière house. Their bodies were just above the remains of
another member of the Dutroux gang, Bernard Weinstein, who was buried alive
after having been tortured by Dutroux, probably in a disagreement over money.
On 3 September, two more bodies were found in a pit behind Lelièvre's bungalow
in Jumet. This time, they were the underfed An and Eefje, who were intercepted
by Dutroux while hitchhiking after a late hypnosis show. By this point, people
began to fear that these macabre findings would not be the last.
Secret networks
As a possible explanation for apparent police
failure and incompetence, allegations soon began flying in some sections of
Belgian public opinion about a gigantic paedophilia network that even penetrated
some of the highest echelons of government. This was all succinctly summed up
early in the investigation when the public prosecutor in charge, Michel
Bourlet, one of the driving forces behind the investigation, said that he
planned to get to the core of what really happened, "if they let me".
Soon after, the other dynamo behind the
investigation, Jean-Marc Connerotte, Neufchateau's chief investigator, was
taken off the case after attending a spaghetti party for Sabine and Laetitia.
Rather than spark off a witch-hunt, the parents of the dead girls called for a
dignified response. The White March – in which everybody wore something white
or carried a white balloon – drew 300,000 people to Brussels on 29 October
1996, in one of the biggest Belgian displays of public protest of the 20th
century.
The day after the march, the government decided
to create a commission to look into the way the investigations into the Dutroux
case were handled. It uncovered a series of missed opportunities and incompetence
that has since led to the complete reform of the justice and police systems,
and the introduction of better support mechanisms – such as Child Focus – for
victims of such crimes and their families.
Over the years, the conspiracy theories have
not gone away. Every so often, a witness emerges. One example was the
mysterious X1, aka Regina Loef, who claimed that she and other missing girls
were earlier victims of a large network involving Dutroux. After a long
struggle between believers and non-believers, it was agreed not to include the
network theories – which were the main factors slowing down the investigation –
so that the trial could start.
As a first step, the Attorney-General decided
that four defendants, Dutroux, Martin, Lelièvre and Nihoul, would have to
appear before a jury.
Judgement day
Nearly eight years later, Dutroux still haunts
Belgium. “It still casts a shadow over [Belgium]. How can something like that
happen in our society? People are still asking, is there something else behind
it?" Herman Van Rompuy, vice-premier at the time of Dutroux's arrest, was
quoted as saying. In a trial predicted to last anywhere between two and four
months, the jury will wrestle with 440,000 pages of written documents, hear
some 450 witnesses and be presented with countless other pieces of evidence.
The trial raises many questions.
First and foremost, will it be possible to give
Dutroux a fair hearing? Most analysts now seem to believe the answer is yes.
They say the authorities have investigated the allegations brought before the
court thoroughly and their fear that Dutroux may get off on a procedural error
has ensured that they will rely only on the facts. Realism is the order of the
day for Dutroux's defence too. As his
lead lawyer, Xavier Magnee, put it in a recent interview: "I don't have
any illusion. If I ask the jury whether my client is guilty, 24 arms would go
up in the air. The only thing I expect is that I can ask the questions I
wrestle with as a citizen of this country." The process that has taken
nearly eight years is not over yet.
Hopefully, the trial will put an end to
speculation and lay the rumours to rest. The success of the proceedings will
depend on all parties involved. Not only must this trail deliver justice it
must also be seen to do so. Once the quest for answers, justice and the truth
behind this sordid affair has ended, then the true mourning for the families of
the victims can begin. Over the next few months, Belgium will seek to banish
the Dutroux demon forever. The mayor of Arlon recently summed up his feelings
on this question. "We have planned a fun fair just behind the Justice
Palace in July. You could see this as a symbolic exorcism of the Devil,"
he said.
This article first appeared on Expatica on Monday 1 March 2004. ãKatleen
Maes. All rights reserved.
ã2004 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website
is the copyright of Khaled Diab.