THE CREDIBILITY OF JUSTICE
Marc Reisinger

The day when Sabine and Laetitia were liberated will undoubtedly remain a turning point in the history of Belgium. Before then, children disappeared, their bodies were found, and occasionally a murderous sadist was arrested. This took up a few lines in the "news in brief" columns. It was as if we were seeing a few fixed frames of a horror film so far from our daily life that we no longer paid them much attention. Suddenly, on 15 August 1996, we witnessed the liberation in real time of two young girls abducted and locked up by Marc Dutroux. The emotion I felt that day as I watched the TV was shared by millions of people in Belgium and all over the world. It was at the origin of the "marche blanche", which itself led for the first time to the live TV broadcast of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the disappearance of children. I am not surprised today to discover in the testimony of Regina – known as XI – the importance that the liberation of Sabine and Laetitia had for her: "The policemen who escorted Sabine and Laetitia into a car were the white knights I had dreamed of throughout those years" (De Morgen, 10 January 1998). It was at that moment that she decided to testify in Neufchâteau.

But the arrest of Dutroux and Nihoul also marked the appearance of a split between the "sensitive" and the "insensitive". Most people felt total empathy for the children who were victims of cruelty. However, a certain number of strong spirits immediately began to criticise Connerotte and Bourlet, the Neufchâteau "cowboys". The removal of magistrate Connerotte was applauded by the conservative establishment, but also by a certain number of left-wing intellectuals. For reasons that we would have to analyse, the latter distrusted the emotion and the excessive media attention surrounding the case. As a psychotherapist, I fear that these people feel difficulty entering into contact with their own suffering, and that they thus take sides unconsciously with the aggressors. It is also likely that hidden influence was set into motion by figures who, rightly or wrongly, felt compromised by the disclosures. How many people who simply took part in Nihoul’s orgies tremble in fear that their names will be cited? Regina stated in her testimony that some of the "parties" of the network were organised with the aim of blackmailing.

A further split gradually appeared in the media. Most of the press began to describe Dutroux as a lone wolf, a psychopath, demented and brilliant. Nihoul was painted as a businessman and a swindler who had recently met Dutroux and had had the unfortunate idea to have his car repaired by him. This thesis was the object of a press campaign that culminated in the TV programme "Au Nom de la Loi" (RTBF, 17 September 1997). Immediately afterwards, a "campaign of silence" developed around Nihoul: his name hardly appeared in the francophone press – with the exception of Télé Moustique - in the following six months.

It is to react to all this that we have created the "Pour la vérité" association, made up of people of various backgrounds anxious to preserve their critical spirit in the face of a premature attempt to dismiss claims that Dutroux and Nihoul had known each other for a long time and that Nihoul benefits from protection. We formulated twelve questions with regard to the investigations in progress and we purchased an entire page in Le Soir to publish them under the title "Nous ne laisserons pas passer". Our aim was to address a message to the public and to try to wake up the media. We have had little success on the second point.

The campaign of silence was finally broken only by the publication of the testimony of Regina. For more than six months, she gave evidence in Neufchâteau about the network of which Dutroux and Nihoul were members. Her testimony describes very clearly the murder of young girls and children. According to the BSR (Brigade Speciale de Recherche) team which heard it, this testimony should have led to fresh inquiries and, in particular, to further searches. Instead, the team was removed from the investigation in July 1997. Since then, a "re-examination" of the file has been taking place. This re-examination, accompanied by the suspension of the investigation, constitutes a new development in judicial procedure. It is as if a doctor stopped treating a patient in a critical condition in order to calmly re-read the medical records. When we realise that this re-examination has already lasted longer than the investigation and that its end is postponed every time the date of the conclusion of the parliamentary committee of inquiry is put back, we might fear that the re-examination actually serves to hush up the investigation.

The unconfessed desire to halt the investigation seems evident to a careful observer. This desire is disguised behind the "scandal" of the leaks. The public prosecutor’s department and certain sectors of the media are disturbed by the leaks without being disturbed by their contents, while organising further leaks that call into question the testimony of XI (like the publication of a summary of the re-examination and of extracts of the psychiatric report on XI). The discussion of the contents of the testimony of XI has also been avoided by focussing the media debate on her credibility: is she traumatised, mad, or suffering from mythomania?

It seems to me to be more interesting to question the credibility of justice than that of XI. Rather than turning to psychiatrists to find out whether what Regina says is true, it would be better to attend to the precise facts described and continue the investigations. We know, for example, that Regina gave details about the murders of Christine Van Hees and Carine Dellaert that match the file and sometimes surpass it in terms of accuracy (like the nail hammered into Christine’s hand). She also named as a victim a young girl from Ghent, Véronique D., who officially died of cancer. This is a perfect opportunity to find out whether XI is reliable: the medical records should be analysed, the two doctors who signed the death certificate should be questioned and the body exhumed. These evident duties of the investigation have been requested by the investigators since January 1997, but up to now they have been rejected by the public prosecutor’s department in Ghent.

Should we not begin to give serious consideration to a different hypothesis from XI’s lack of credibility to explain the delay in inquiries? Is it not simply the fact that her testimony calls into question important figures such as industrialists, politicians, and even a former prime minister?