De
Morgen, 7 January 1997
DUTROUX
AND NIHOUL SUSPECTED OF THE MURDER OF CHRISTINE
VAN HEES IN 1984
By Annemie
Bulté and Douglas De Coninck
On 13 February 1984, the
horribly mutilated body of 16-year-old Christine
Van Hees was found in an old Champignonnière
(mushroom bed) in Auderghem. Thirteen years of
investigations led to nothing. Three months
before the beginning of the Dutroux case, the
Brussels public prosecutor’s department
classified the case as closed. At the end of
1996, witness XI testified to the Neufchâteau
public prosecutor’s department, accusing
Marc Dutroux, Michel Nihoul and others of having
committed the murder. Thanks to extremely precise
information, XI proved that she was present at
the time of the murder. Despite this, the
investigation is now completely blocked.
Since 27 January 1997, the
Brussels public prosecutor’s department has
been leading an investigation into the alleged
involvement of Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul in
the murder of the young Christine Van Hees. The
work of the Neufchâteau unit (3rd
Section of Criminal Research, Brussels BSR) led
to the reopening of the 13-year-old
investigation. The first reason was the
statements of witness XI. The 28-year-old women
contacted the magistrate Jean-Marc Connerotte in
Neufchâteau on 4 September 1996. XI stated that
she was present at the time of the murder. She
was able to prove this by a precise description
of the places, details of the injuries inflicted
on Christine Van Hees, and information regarding
the private life of the victims and the accused.
In some respects XI’s statement proved to be
more complete than the autopsy report made by the
forensic surgeons.
XI’s version was
confirmed after an analysis of the old
investigation file. This investigation, led from
1985 onwards by the Brussels magistrate Van
Espen, already contained evidence pointing to
Dutroux and Nihoul. In 1984 a friend of Christine
Van Hees stated to the Brussels CID that the
young girl, during the weekend preceding her
death, had a rendez-vous with "a certain
Marc in the region of Mons". At the end of
1996, it appeared that Dutroux frequented the
same ice-skating rink as Christine Van Hees in
1983 and 1984. Moreover, it turned out that not
long before her death the young girl went to a
party held by the free radio station in
Etterbeek, Radio Activité, run at the time by
Michel Nihoul.
In the course of the new
investigation, around 300 witnesses were
questioned. These confirmed the statements of XI
on a number of crucial points. And yet the
investigation has now come to a halt. On 25
August 1997, the team of investigators following
up XI’s statements was removed. This
happened on the insistence of magistrate Van
Espen, who had doubts about the objectivity of
the investigators. On the request of Van Espen,
his colleague Langlois (Neufchâteau) and police
commander Duterme, a "re-examination"
of all the inquiries based on the testimony of XI
was begun. Initially this re-examination was to
last a few weeks, but it has dragged on for over
six months. Since September, XI has had to deal
with a new group of investigators. In a letter
addressed to the Verwilghen Committee, she
complains – like her therapist – of the
manner in which she is treated. XI says that she
feels they want to "break" her
emotionally.
It is not only the Van Hees
investigation that has nearly come to a halt. The
same is true of five other inquiries which were
opened (or reopened) on the basis of the
statements of XI to the public prosecutor’s
departments of Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent and
Neufchâteau. XI describes many murders of
children which she says were carried out in the
context of a very extensive network of child
prostitution. Despite a triple
"re-examination" of XI’s
statements, it cannot be demonstrated that this
information can have any source other than her
own memory.
The information published
by De Morgen with regard to these inquiries are
the result of five months of research.
Dutroux and Nihoul
suspected of the murder of Christine Van Hees in
1984
"It’s the nail in
my coffin," stated the Brussels magistrate
Jean-Claude Van Espen when asked about the
Champignonnière file. The expression was not a
particularly happy one. At the end of 1996, it
was because of a nail that the officers of the
Brussels BSR probably found the key to the
mystery that surrounds the horrific murder of
Christine Van Hees in 1984. Very soon it also
turned out that even without the Dutroux affair
and the testimony of XI Van Espen would have been
able to find the trail of Marc Dutroux and Michel
Nihoul as early as 1985.
That evening, the fireman
Norbert Vanden Berghen experienced the most
dramatic moments in his professional life.
"The phone had not stopped ringing all day.
We had had a lot of fires and accidents, even
three at a time." The date was Monday 13
February 1984. At 8.47 p.m. another emergency
call came. A cloud of smoke had been seen in a
ruined family mansion on the land of the old
Auderghem Champignonnière, near the campus of
the Free University of Brussels (VUB). Before the
fireman reached the scene, a second fire was
reported nearby. Smoke was coming from the
basement window of the Champignonnière. While
one team searched the abandoned house, the other
team plunged into the cellar with torches.
Lieutenant Vanden Berghen was part of the second
team. "We saw a fire smouldering under a
pile of wooden boxes. As the fire had almost gone
out, we looked inside."
Cause of death unknown.
What then appeared will
remain impressed on the fireman’s mind for a
long time. He saw a charred human trunk. Part of
the head had been devoured by the flames. Feet
and hands, there wasn’t much left. "It
was a young girl. She was lying on her stomach.
She was naked. Her legs and arms were tied
together with a length of wire, which was also
twisted around her neck. Her legs were bent
backwards. Horrible."
In the smouldering pile,
the experts from the Brussels police found
personal items belonging to the victim: jewels,
the charred remains of a T-shirt, a bra. The
detectives were faced with a puzzle. Their first
impression was that the victim had accompanied
her murderers voluntarily. Before the group had
gone down into the basement, they had evidently
been in the house, where objects were found that
seemed to be related to the crime.
The next day, when Pierre
and Antoinette Van Hees heard the news of the
discovery of the body of a young girl a few
blocks from where they lived, they were overcome
by fear. Their 16-year-old daughter Christine had
not come home the day before. Another day and a
half passed before the Brussels CID could give
the managers of the newsagent’s in Avenue du
Diamant a definite answer: the body was that of
Christine. Her parents had to go and identity
bits of exercise books and jewellery. They were
not shown the body. There were reasons for that.
In their autopsy report, the forensic surgeons
Rillaert and Voordecker did not hazard an opinion
on the cause of death. Before being burnt, the
young girl had been so badly abused that it was
impossible to tell which act of torture had been
fatal. In his first report, Dr. Voordecker
mentioned traces of strangling. Later the doctors
included another observation in their report: the
victim was not undergoing menstruation – a
detail which would only assume full importance
thirteen years later. The girl’s parents had
another shock to endure. Their daughter had not
been to school that morning. Apparently she had
missed school quite often.
It was the period of new
wave music. Christine Van Hees was a dreamer. She
loved U2, and in the months before her death she
had argued with her parents more than once about
her clothes and her social life. Christine also
loved sport. Once a week she would go skating or
swimming. She went to school in Anderlecht, where
she had many friends. That afternoon, towards
5.20 p.m., she was last seen alive by two of her
friends in Rue Wayez in Anderlecht. She had a bit
of a chat with her friend Chantal and showed her
the boots she had bought (or got from someone)
that morning. During this conversation, she
noticed Didier, her old scout chief. Chantal and
Didier saw Christine walk towards the
Saint-Guidon underground station. From there it
was half an hour’s journey to the Pétillon
station, near her home. It must have been very
quick. At 6.50 p.m. some people in Rue de la
Stratégie heard a young girl screaming. What
they heard seemed to be: "No, not that!
Stop! Mum!".
The punk trail
Those who were students at
the Free University of Brussels in the
mid-eighties knew the urban legend. Some screwy
punks had organised a Satanic mass. The case
seemed simple. In 1984 the deserted
Champignionnière was a pile of ruins. Some punks
used to go there regularly to smoke joints,
before returning to the Kultuurcafé. To the
extent that he had time for this case, that was
the trail followed by the Brussels investigating
magistrate Eloy. Eloy was also in charge of the
investigation into the left-wing C.C.C. terrorist
group. A lot for just one man. Eloy had a heart
attack, and later a nervous breakdown. On 1
October 1985, the case was placed in the hands of
another magistrate, the up-and-coming Jean-Claude
Van Espen.
Van Espen inherited a file
that already contained a principal suspect: Serge
C., one of the punks who had been seen frequently
at the Champignionnière. C., nicknamed
‘l’Iroquois", was a striking
character. A bright red Mohican, military boots,
drugged up to his eyeballs. In 1983, C. had
served two months in prison for violent theft.
Later he was prosecuted for desertion. On 13
September 1984 he was arrested and charged with
the murder of Christine Van Hees. During a search
one of her exercise books was found at his house.
C. denied, confessed, denied, confessed… His
lawyer attributed the fickleness of his young
client to the fact that the CID rewarded his
confessions with drugs. Without drugs, C. said he
knew nothing. There was only one constant in his
statements: he had no idea how the exercise book
had ended up in his room. He suspected someone
had put it there "to get him". C. was
heard a total of sixteen times and would remain
in custody for three years, two months and four
days. In the psychiatric reports we read that
Serge C. was "heavily mentally
deranged" and that "he has no control
over his actions". When C. was released on
17 November 1987 without any further charges,
Didier de Quévy became his lawyer. De Quévy
took the case to the European Court of the Human
Rights, where Belgium was condemned in 1991 for
keeping C. in custody for an unreasonable length
of time. During this period de Quévy was also
defending other "drop-outs". He was the
defence lawyer of a certain Marc Dutroux from
Marcinelle. At the beginning of 1992, the
Brussels CID resumed the investigation into the
murder of Christine Van Hees from the beginning.
For the first time, Christine’s mother
Antoinette Van Hees was questioned, and a local
investigation took place. This led to a new
trail. For four years police searched for the
owner of a black car with a golden eagle on the
bonnet. Some local residents had seen such a car
patrolling the area. This trail also led nowhere.
In June 1996, Christine’s parents learned
from the Brussels public prosecutor’s
department that the case had been closed.
"In their letter, they wrote your daughter
Claudine," recalls Pierre Van Hees. "To
give you an idea of the intensive manner in which
they dealt with the case."
Witness XI comes forward in
Neufchâteau
Wednesday 4 September 1996:
investigating magistrate Jean-Marc Connerotte of
Neufchâteau was talking to Warrant Officer De
Baets of the 3rd Criminal Research
Section of the Brussels BSR. De Baets was
furious. He was leading the investigation into
the financial situation of Marc Dutroux. The
telephone rang. A certain "Tania from
Ghent" tried to explain something to
Connerotte, but her French was as
incomprehensible to him as his Flemish was to
her. He handed the phone to De Baets. Through
Tania, De Baets was put in contact with a young
woman who wanted "to say some things about
Michel Nihoul". It quickly appeared that the
young woman had a lot to say. Since she asked to
remain anonymous, she was called XI in the
statement.
"We are faced with
ruin," said Marc Verwilghen when he heard
about the testimony of XI at the end of 1996.
During a TV debate, a journalist from Le Soir
predicted that Belgium would not exist for much
longer. The Dutroux case, he said, was just a
detail. Who is XI? A small, 27-year-old woman,
surprisingly self-confident, with an incredible
history. As a baby she was entrusted to her
grandmother, who lived in Knokke. There she was
raised as a child prostitute. Until the age of
ten, she was handed over like goods for sale in
hotel rooms in Knokke. XI explained that as an
adolescent, while watching TV she would
occasionally see those who had raped her.
Ministers, burgomasters, barons, or the managing
directors of banks and important companies. That
these men raped her was OK, said XI, that was
bearable. The murders, that was the real problem.
The pleasure of these clients was accentuated by
the anguish of the child. Their greatest pleasure
matched the greatest anguish, that of death.
According to XI, for the organisation and the
protection of their debauchery, these well-known
figures turned to small-time criminals like her
own procurer Tony, or characters like Marc
Dutroux, Michel Nihoul and Bernard Weinstein.
What should they do with a testimony like this at
a time when the whole country was baying?
Investigate, ordered Connerotte.
One thing surprised Warrant
Officer De Baets from XI’s first hearing on
20 September 1996. She did not hesitate. With
disconcerting ease, she was able to name old
classmates who could confirm her story (which
they would do), she gave the secret addresses of
well-known figures and described the inside of
their houses (correctly). She spoke of
"Marc", the poor oaf who, at the
beginning of the eighties, passed over her body
with others including "Miche".
"Dutroux had two alsatians," she said.
"They were called Brutus and Sultan."
Later, during police questioning, Dutroux was
asked about his dogs. He got frightened and
refused to answer. Michelle Martin was
suspicious. One of the two dogs was still alive
– it guarded the house in Marcinelle when
Julie and Mélissa were imprisoned there.
"It was called Sultan," said Martin. A
lot of information about Dutroux was disclosed by
the press in those days. The dog’s name was
never mentioned. How could XI have known it?
The secret diary
XI would be heard a total
of seventeen times. Each of these hearings was
filmed from the first minute to the last. This
was done on the advice of experts. XI suffers
from what is known in psychology as dissociation.
In order to remember a traumatic event, she has
to look in a corner of her memory that she has
locked up. Speaking about it makes the victim
relive the traumatic event. But XI knows how to
protect herself. When it became too difficult for
her, she fell silent -–for hours, if
necessary. She never cried. "They never
taught me to express my grief," she
apologised.
On the evening of the 13
November, during her fifth hearing, XI mentioned
Christine’s name. She told how the young
girl, after being tortured at length, was burned
in the basement of a ruined building, in the
Brussels area. This happened in the wake of an
orgy that had lasted a whole weekend, during
which – she would add later – her own
5-month-old baby was killed. As a punishment.
Among those present, XI named Michel Nihoul, Marc
Dutroux, Michelle Martin, Annie Bouty, Tony,
Bernard Weinstein, a lawyer from Brussels, a
couple from Ghent, and a "stranger".
From the hearing of 13
November, statement number 116/990: "They
killed Christine […] Dutroux and Nihoul tied
her up in a special way. I had to plunge a knife
into her vagina […] They told me I had to
make her shut up. Christine was tied up first of
all on a table […]. They guided my hand, I
was forced to strangle her, otherwise the same
thing would happen to me. Christine was raped
several times. Then they untied her, in order to
tie her up again. Her feet and hands were tied
together on her back. Then they burned her."
At the end of the questioning, XI described the
house where this took place. Later, she gave
further explanations about what had led to the
punitive execution: "In the network, there
were some experienced girls, like me, whose
parents had left them at a very early age. There
were also girls who were approached by adults and
gradually introduced into the network. We had to
take these girls under our wing. If they
committed a mistake, it was we who were punished.
That’s the way it worked. With Christine it
didn’t work at all. She was lost. Three or
four months before her death, she had met Nihoul.
He made all sorts of promises. It was only at the
end that she realised the truth. She wanted to
leave, she told me. She told me that she had a
secret diary hidden away somewhere. I told her to
speak to her parents and ask them to protect her.
I then made the stupid mistake of speaking about
it with another girl. She had just received a
beating because of Christine and she went to tell
Nihoul about the secret diary. They planned the
execution straight away. She had to die, as an
example to the rest of us."
From the eighth hearing, 18
November 1996, statement number 116/991: "We
were both pushed naked into a car. After a
journey of twenty minutes we came to a place with
lots of weeds and rubble. There was a funny
smell, the ground was cold and damp […] We
arrived in a house, upstairs. Then we went down
into a big cellar. There Christine was untied and
tied up again like a rabbit. She was raped again
and cut with a knife. […] There were some
candles. […] One of the people present
stabbed her on various parts of her body with a
piece of metal heated over a candle. Then,
someone mopped the blood from her vagina with a
tampax, […] Finally the lawyer pierced her
hand with a piece of metal. Then they poured
petrol on her and set her alight."
At the end of the hearing,
XI drew a plan of the house where she said the
torture had taken place. What she drew was a
rather classic plan of a family mansion in
Brussels, a pile of rubble that must have been a
garden, and the entrance to a cellar. Some of the
details are striking. Three little loops in the
kitchen represent meat-hooks. The little squares
are two wooden tables that were left by the
former owners. In what must be the hall, XI drew
a big line that crosses it diagonally. This was a
heavy metal pipe that she tripped over when she
arrived, she explained.
"She has been
there"
For those who want to form
an opinion of XI’s credibility, it is useful
to know that the investigators of the 3rd
Criminal Research Section of the BSR had no
knowledge at the beginning of November of the
investigation carried out in the past by the CID.
After hearing XI speak about Christine for the
first time, some of the BSR men searched in the
archives. They found a few old press cuttings on
the subject of the murder of Christine Van Hees.
This is not where XI could have found her story.
The newspapers give very different accounts of
the situation in which the body was found.
On 4 December, the
investigators of the Brussels public
prosecutor’s department went to look for the
84/85 file of the magistrate Van Espen. What they
discovered made them sit up. They found a
detailed description of the objects found at the
scene of the crime. There was mention, among
other things, of some candle ends and a
blood-soaked tampax. These are just a few lines
of a file which, piled up, measured six feet. On
certain points XI’s version seemed more
precise than the old file. In the file it is
stated several times that Christine Van Hees was
tied up with barbed wire. Barbed wire was also
mentioned in most of the newspaper articles.
"Wrong," said XI, "it was electric
wire with the covering melted. The investigators
rushed to the clerk’s office of the Brussels
department and found the wire. It was an electric
wire with the covering melted.
In the autopsy report there
was no mention of a metal object hammered into
Christine’s wrists. After leafing through
the file for days on end, the attention of the
BSR men was drawn by report no. 30.14.321/84,
drawn up by the Auderghem police on the evening
of 13 February 1984. It states: "A nail is
hammered into her left wrist." A short while
later, they found the nail in the clerk’s
office. It was an enormous nail. During further
checks carried out by the BSR men at the
beginning of 1997, it emerged that the nail was
the object of an argument at the time between the
forensic surgeons and the first men to arrive on
the scene. The Auderghem policeman De Kock said
he attracted the doctors’ attention to the
nail, but they allegedly replied that they knew
how to carry out an autopsy. The fireman Norbert
Vanden Berghen and his colleague Yvan Leurquin
were heard, thirteen years after the events. They
too spoke of a nail and said they couldn’t
understand how the forensic surgeons could have
forgotten it.
On 21 January 1997,
59-year-old José Ginderachter was heard. He is
the son of the man who once farmed the
Champignionnière, and had lived in the family
mansion. When presented with XI’s statement,
all he could say was: "This person must have
been there."
Whether it was a matter of
the three meat-hooks in the kitchen, the pattern
of the floor-tiles, the two wooden kitchen
tables, a rainwater barrel in the courtyard or
the entrance to the Champignionnière,
Ginderachter could only confirm. On twelve
concrete points, her description matched what he
could remember about the house. He was also able
to explain what XI had tripped over: "That
pipe in the hall was a piece of the old floor
heating in the Champignionnière, which had been
left bare when the floor had been removed."
If we played the
devil’s advocate, we might suppose that XI
had spent a day in Auderghem by chance, in the
former Champignionnière, and that she had
visited it. It is worth mentioning that at the
time of the events XI was 15 years old and lived
in Ghent. The Champignionnière was destroyed a
year later to make way for a block of flats. Even
if we only trust material evidence, it is
difficult not to conclude that XI must have been
present at the time of the murder. But isn’t
what she has said about the authors of the murder
too incredible? Dutroux and Nihoul, committing a
murder together in 1984? Didn’t they meet in
1995?
"Ladies and gentlemen,
we do not need XI to solve this crime," said
an investigator from the 3rd Criminal
Research Section to the members of the Verwilghen
Committee, overwhelmed by astonishment when he
was heard in camera in October 1997. The man has
spent months leafing through the old CID file.
His conclusion was as follows: "The names of
the murderers provided by XI have been indicated
indirectly in the file since 1984."
What follows is based on
the testimonies from 1984.
Together at the
skating-rink.
In the first few days after
her murder, the police learned from her
classmates that Christine Van Hees had been
leading a double life in the months before her
death. She had been missing school, not just on
the morning of 13 February 1984 but also the
whole week from 20 to 25 January 1984. Without
her parents knowing about it, she had received a
medical certificate from Dr. Hallard. According
to her friends, Christine often went out at
night. All her friends pointed to the trail of
the Poséidon ice-skating rink in
Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. At the rink, Ariane M.
remembered that Christine had met "a certain
Marc from the Mons region". Her brother met
Christine not long before her death in a café
with a certain Marc (later he would recognise him
almost certainly as the younger Marc Dutroux)
During the weekend before her death, Christine
had a rendez-vous with " a certain
Marc", according to another friend. This
Marc rode a motorbike. The CID never managed to
identify this mysterious figure. Françoise
Dubois, the former wife of Marc Dutroux, was able
to tell the investigators at the beginning of
1997 that he often used to go the skating rinks
in Forest and in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. "He
often stayed all weekend in Brussels."
Michelle Martin met her husband at the rink. At
the end of 1983 she was at the end of her
pregnancy. She confirmed in a statement given on
4 December 1996 that Dutroux often went alone to
make contact with young girls. At that time he
used to ride a big motorbike.
Christine also used to go
swimming a lot. Afterwards, according to her
friends, she would go to the cafeteria for a
drink. On the first floor of the Etterbeek
swimming-pool were the premises of a free radio
station called Radio Activité. At the end of
1996, the radio station was one of the key
elements in the investigation of the Neufchâteau
public prosecutor’s department. Because the
leading character at Radio Activité was none
other than Michel Nihoul. Radio Activité
appeared on several occasions in the old file.
Not long before her death, some of
Christine’s friends saw her at parties
organised there.
At the time of the
investigations about Serge C., in 1984, there was
a Radio Activité worker who came forward to
offer "information" to the CID
investigators. This information often pointed in
the direction of the punk trail. This man
received more attention from police officers than
the discotheque porter Freddy V. He advised them
"to go and have a look at the café Les
Bouffons, a habitual meeting place for Radio
Activité people". The porter noticed
Christine there not long before her death. It
wasn’t really a place for a young girl like
her, according to Freddy V. Especially when we
discover that Patrick Haemers was also considered
a habitué.
In the middle of the
eighties, investigating magistrate Jean-Claude
Van Espen was obviously not to know that terms
like "a certain Marc" or "Radio
Activité" would one day become enormous
alarm signals in this case. And yet there are
other clues that point to Nihoul and his circle.
On 27 April 1987, the Etterbeek police received a
phone call. The conversation went as follows: -
"Is that the Etterbeek Police Station?
Excuse me, sir. If you want some useful
information, go and have a look at the café
Dolo, at 140 Rue Philippe Baucq." The police
officer: "What’s going on there?"
- "You might find
out more about the
Champignionnière."
- "What do you
mean?"
- "On the corner of
Rue Philippe Baucq, the Dolo. If you go
there from time to time, you’ll find
out more about the
Champignionnière."
- "Why do you say
that, sir?"
At this moment the caller
was cut off. The conversation, recorded on tape,
can be found in the old 64/85 file (statement
33797, Etterbeek Police). No investigations were
ever made into the café Dolo. And yet there were
also other reasons for doing so. Shortly after
the murder, Muriel A. learnt that Christine had
told her parents that she slept at her house
every now and then – which was not true.
Nathalie G. recalled that after a night out, two
weeks before her death, Christine had begged her
to accompany her home, "because she was
afraid of someone".
Then there was Fabienne K.
She stated to the Brussels CID that she saw
Christine every day on the bus, and that
Christine had told her she was part of a group of
people "older than her" who held
"secret meetings". K. stressed the fact
that Christine did not mention punks or
skinheads. On 20 February 1984, Fabienne K.
stated as follows (from statement no. 7112):
"Christine never spoke
about this to the girls in her class. She told me
more or less that this group practised free love
[…]. She told me that the group attracted
her and worried her at the same time. She said
she wanted to make a break from them because some
serious things had happened […]. Christine
had a personal diary that she kept hidden
somewhere […]. She had clashed with another
girl in the group. She felt very attracted by one
of the members. That’s how she described the
group: ‘They’re pigs, but I feel good
with them.’ She told me that when you had
become part of these circles, you would never be
able to leave. If she spoke about it, they would
kill her and set her house on fire. […] She
said there was no point talking about it because
no-one would believe her."
Fabienne K. confirmed her
story to the CID in 1993, and again at the
beginning of 1997 to the officers of the 3rd
Criminal Research Section. So there was no real
need for new clues. Meanwhile, XI had listed the
addresses where Annie Bouty and/or Michel Nihoul
lived in 1984. The addresses were checked and
found to match. The BSR officers also resumed the
search for cars with the eagle. And Marlène De
Cockere, a friend of Nihoul, had bought a
Mitsubishi Celeste in April 1983 with an eagle
painted on the bonnet. This piece of evidence is
the least certain of the series of checks carried
out by the team of Warrant Officer De Baets. In
the middle of the investigation into this car, De
Baets and three other investigators were removed
from the Neufchâteau unit in mid-August. (see
inset).
XI wasn’t always so
precise, true. And De Baets and his team
sometimes worked in a hasty manner. But the small
errors that the "re-examination"
charged them with are not important enough to
call the value of the investigation into
question. At the transcription phase, things
didn’t always go smoothly. Warrant Officer
De Baets and Philippe Hupez have her say in a
statement that "Bernard Weinstein" was
also present at the time of the murder. On the
original video, it is rather different. XI speaks
of a man "I think might have been
Weinstein". Neither XI, nor Hupez, nor least
of all De Baets made this correction. And yet it
is of immense importance. Bernard Weinstein was
in prison in France until the end of 1985. Just
before they were dismissed, the investigators
made another discovery about Marc Dutroux. On 15
February 1984, he opened a current account at the
Crédit Professional bank in Hainaut. In the next
three days, a total of 200,000 Belgian francs
were paid into the account. 15th
February, that is two days after the murder of
Christine Van Hees.
While awaiting the results
of the "re-examination", investigating
magistrate Van Espen has been following a new
trail for the last few weeks: that of the
Brussels punks…
How the re-examination has
"broken" the 1997 file
Well before the beginning
of the debate about the possible transfer of the
annexed files of the Dutroux case to other
judicial districts, such a transfer had already
taken place on 27 January 1997 for some parts of
the file 96/109 of the Neufchâteau public
prosecutor’s department. File 96/109 was the
file opened by investigating magistrate
Connerotte to gather together all the statements
by the victims of paedophile crimes. When a
testimony proved to have some link with an
investigation in progress into the murder of a
child, this part was transferred to the district
concerned. In the case of the Champignonnière,
the district concerned was Brussels.
"You will have
trouble," X predicted when the investigating
officers thought she would be pleased at the news
of the transfer. And yet everything indicated
that the withdrawal of the file from Neufchâteau
would be beneficial in terms of efficacy. If one
of XI’s statements can be considered
significant, it is exactly this prediction.
Things become difficult for
XI
The trouble would begin
with the leaks concerning the letter sent by
investigating magistrates Leys and Van Espen on
29 October 1996 to various judicial authorities.
The two magistrates, specialised in financial
cases, complained that the financial section (3rd
Criminal Research Section) of the Brussels BSR
was now working only on the Dutroux case and
hardly at all on financial investigations. The
reason why Van Espen complained at the end of
1996 of a lack of staff for his financial cases,
but at the same time took back a file that he
described as "the nail in my coffin" is
not clear. The first thing that Van Espen
discovered, on this occasion, was a thorough
analysis of the old Van Hees file by a
conscientious member of the BSR. In this
analysis, Van Espen’s investigation is
described as erratic. It could be seen that he
had constantly neglected all evidence that led to
the trail of Dutroux and Nihoul.
On 20 June 1997, a meeting
took place between Van Espen, the Gendarmerie
Commander Duterme (at the head of the
Neufchâteau unit of the 3rd Criminal
Research Section since the end of 1996) and
several investigators. Warrant Officers De Baets
and Mertens, who co-ordinated almost all the work
of the unit, were not invited. There was a reason
for this. The meeting was about them. Duterme and
Van Espen claimed that De Baets had falsified a
statement. What had happened? At the end of the
hearing of 18 November (see above), De Baets
showed XI a series of photos. One of them was
that of Christine Van Hees. "Is she among
these photos?" asked De Baets. XI nodded.
"Would you point her out?". XI said no.
She wanted the hearing to end and she didn’t
want to look at the photos any more "because
everything comes back to me". De Baets
insisted. XI got angry. She wanted to go home.
She didn’t want to testify ever again, she
said. She deliberately pointed to another photo.
In his report, De Baets wrote that "XI
recognised the photo of Christine", because
during the course of a later hearing she pointed
to the photo without faltering.
Duterme, however, accused
De Baets of "false transcription". Van
Espen added another complaint. He had discovered
that De Baets had provided a piece of information
about Nihoul to Councillor Marique of the
Verwilghen Committee. A procedural fault, claimed
Van Espen. De Baets should have asked for his
permission. On 22 June, in a long letter to the
public prosecutor Benoît Dejemeppe, Van Espen
declared "his concern about the
contamination of this investigation".
The path taken by Van
Espen’s letter is a clear sign of the
environment in which the 96/109 file rests.
Dejemeppe sent the letter to the national
magistrate Van Oudenhove, who sent it on to the
Minister of Justice De Clerck. He sent it to the
Public prosecutor of Liège, Thily, who judged it
to be a matter for Brussels. Thily sent it back
to Dejemeppe, who finally instructed
investigating magistrate Pignolet to carry our an
investigation for false transcription
"against unknown parties". Meanwhile,
various complaints began to pour in. At the CID,
Superintendent Marnette accused Superintendent
Suys, and vice versa. Due to a statement by Suys
to the Verwilghen Committee, quoted wrongly in
the press. Chief Superintendent De Vroom raged
against the Brussels BSR because he thought it
was the source of the mad incest story regarding
his daughter. Within the 3rd Criminal
Research Section, Duterme added a complaint
against De Baets for the question of the photo.
In some newspapers all this became a carry-on
with De Baets indicated as the great
orchestrator, also of the ridiculous search of
the Abrasax Satanic sect, the Jumet searches and
the Di Rupo affair…
Pan publishes a
"scoop"
Pignolet was instructed to
separate the wheat from the chaff. He looked
mainly at the chaff. De Baets had nothing to do
with Jumet, Abrasax, De Vroom or Di Rupo. If we
study file 96/109 closely, we discover that on 6
December 1996, in report no. 117.487, De Baets
noted carefully that on 18 November XI had
pointed to the wrong photo because she was
breaking down. Van Espen and Duterme do not seem
to have noticed this report. The deluge of
complaints soon made people forget that there was
an investigation into the murder of Christine Van
Hees. It seemed, in fact, that the murder
investigation was only secondary. At a certain
point it was only a case of "faulty and
suggestive methods of inquiry", and
investigating magistrate Jacques Langlois ordered
a "re-examination" of all the
investigations that had been opened on the basis
of file 96/109. This "re-examination",
which was to take no more than a few weeks –
was to find out whether De Baets and his team
really influenced their witnesses.
On 21 August, the weekly
magazine Pan (owned by the former Prime Minister
Paul Vanden) wrote that De Baets and three of his
officers at the Neufchâteau unit had been
removed from the investigation. The headline was
"Verwilghen, Knokke-out" –
whatever that means. The strange thing is that no
decision had yet been made. It was only on 25
August that the four officers were informed by
Colonel Brabant that they had been removed from
the unit, "temporarily" until the
completion of the re-examination. Today, 7
January 1997, the re-examination is still in
progress. File 96/109 has already been re-read
twice. After a first (unofficial) re-reading,
then a second, a third was begun at the beginning
of July. According to the latest news, this has
almost reached completion and does not in any way
suggest that XI was "helped" during
questioning. Meanwhile, the 3rd
Criminal Research Section is divided into two
camps which are at daggers drawn, and no-one
believes that the four officers will be able to
rejoin the Neufchâteau unit. It seems that
nothing will ever come out of any investigation.
After the many examinations and re-examinations
of the confidential file 96/109, so many copies
have circulated that the authors of the crimes
described by XI must by now know the contents
better than anyone. At the end of November, one
of the Gendarmerie analysts left the whole Van
Hees file lying around in the boot of his car,
where it was stolen.
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