Alist Aport

Beyond the Dutroux Affair I

by Joël van der Reijden

• Published under: Crime and Childabuse

Warning: The information in this article is not suited for anyone below the age of 18, as it involves extreme sexual violence against children. A certain amount of normally-illegal visual evidence (it is censored) has been included.

The news item that removed the ground from under my feet lasts four minutes... The people in the streets react equally bitter. They do not want to lose Connerotte. The parents of the missing and murdered girls express their anger in public. Their hope hurts me. They think that Connerotte is not yet a lost cause. Their naitivity reminds me of the hope I once had. I have learned to prepare for the worst. And the worst happened.

- Victim-witness Regina Louf (X1) about the October 1996 White March in which 300,000 people went to protest in Brussels against the removal of Jean-Marc Connerotte from the Dutroux investigation. (1998, 'Zwijgen is voor Daders,' p. 204)

"The men who raped us weren’t particularly attracted to children. The only thing they were interested in was to go beyond all limits from a sexual point of view. And children were perfect for that. They kept quiet and did what was asked of them."

- January 8, 1996: Quote from Regina Louf (X1) in De Morgen

"FRANCE WAS facing an enormous judicial scandal yesterday after its most senior public prosecutor ordered an investigation into the unexplained disappearance of up to 24 young women in northern Burgundy over the past 30 years."

"The investigation follows the revelation that almost all of the records of criminal investigations started and dropped by the prosecutor's office in Auxerre between 1958 and 1982 - including many cases of missing women - had been stolen or destroyed..." "Official investigations into dysfunctions in the local welfare, police and justice systems already hinted at a pattern of cover-ups and incompetence. French newspapers have compared the case to the "Dutroux affair" in Belgium, in which the alleged paedophile ring operator and child murderer Marc Dutroux appeared to have benefited from official protection."

- December 13, 2001: The Independent "French prosecutor orders investigation into scandal of missing women"

"In August 1997 the body of 57-year-old Christian Jambert was found in the cellar of his home in Auxerre. There was, it was said at the time, a single bullet hole in his throat, a hunting rifle by his side and a suicide note nearby."

"Colleagues of this retired detective quickly concluded that it was an open-and-shut case: Jambert had suffered from depression and had clearly taken his own life. So sure was Auxerre's public prosecutor that he didn't bother to order a post-mortem."

"But not everyone was convinced. For, far from enjoying a quiet retirement, right until the day of his death Jambert had dedicated his every waking moment to trying to solve the mysterious disappearances and deaths of young women from the area."

"His interest in the disparu, or disappeared, had first been triggered by the fate of seven women, aged 16 to 27, who had attended the same special education centre in Auxerre before vanishing between 1977 and 1979."

"Then a serving gendarme, Jambert was the first officer to link their disappearances to Emile Louis, a coach driver. Prosecutors, however, dismissed his evidence, shelved his investigation and ignored at least three subsequent requests by him to have it reopened."

"Someone somewhere wanted the disappearances hushed up, he believed - a suspicion reinforced when other similar investigations were inexplicably closed."

"The case for the conspiracy theorists was further strengthened in 1984 when a horribly mutilated woman escaped from a house in a village close to Auxerre and led police to a cellar where she and two others had been imprisoned for up to three months and subjected to appalling abuse."

"A list of 50 people, rumoured to include several French 'notables' who had paid various rates to torture and abuse the women, was discovered by police."

"It would later go missing from a courtroom in Auxerre, and only Claude Dunand, a factory worker and his wife, Monique - who both lived in the house - were jailed."

"For almost 20 years Jambert had battled to solve these cases (he had also studied Jo Parrish's murder in depth) before finally persuading a team of elite Parisian gendarmes to re-examine the cases."

"But just weeks before he was due to deliver his evidence, Jambert was found dead. Given the circumstances, one might have expected a thorough investigation. Instead, the case was closed with indecent haste and, although suspicions existed from day one, it would be almost seven years before they would be acted upon."

"In that time there were some dramatic revelations. First, in 2000, the coach driver Emile Louis was arrested. He confessed to seven murders and led police to two bodies."

He subsequently retracted his confession, insisting the girls were abducted, abused and killed by a ring of high-ranking local men.

"He was only the chauffeur, he says - a claim that will be tested when his trial takes place in Auxerre later this year."

"Louis was serving time in prison when Jo Parrish died, but the families of the victims suspect that he and Dunand were two of many local sex criminals who procured girls for their important 'clients'."

"But the most compelling evidence for some sort of conspiracy emerged this April, when, after pressure from his son Philippe, Jambert's body was finally exhumed and a postmortem carried out."

"It revealed that he had been shot twice. The pathologist concluded that the entry wounds were caused by two bullets of apparently different types which had been fired from different angles. Either shot would have been fatal, meaning Jambert could not have killed himself. Police are now working on the theory that he was executed by men who feared he was about to reveal damning evidence against them."

- July 21, 2004, The Daily Mail: "Was Jo killed by a sex cult?". For 14 years Leeds student Joanna Parrish's murder in France has been unsolved. Now the arrest of a serial killer poses the chilling question: was she murdered by a cabal of high powered men obsessed with rape and torture?

"The claims involve white slavery, sado-masochism, rapes, sex with minors, drug dealing and appalling brutality - all in the heart of the government of one of France's most historic and most civilised cities... Though the accusations are unproved, Justice Minister Dominique Perben sacked Toulouse's prosecutor-general, Jean Volff, last week for covering up links between senior officials and the exploitation of vulnerable girls. Volff has denied any wrongdoing..."

"Detectives have reopened an investigation into the disappearance of 115 young women in the Toulouse area between 1986 and 1997, and are probing earlier claims that [Patrice] Alègre was paid to establish a prostitution network by respected local leaders."

"According to press reports, senior police officials covered up Alègre's role as a pimp in Toulouse. The most startling accounts of sexual violence were given by a woman known as Patricia, 32, who went into hiding in 1992 after witnessing two murders. She has told examining magistrates that Alègre was in charge of recruiting prostitutes and organising orgies. She identified men with whom she had sex at Toulouse's Palais de Justice and said sado-masochist orgies went on at a chateau owned by Toulouse council. She claimed she had witnessed the killing by Alègre of two girls he had recruited..."

"The other witness, known as Fanny, was 17 when she was forced into prostitution in 1990 after being recruited by Alègre who, for a time, worked in the police station canteen. She had also witnessed the second murder, but had kept quiet about Alègre's involvement until tracked down two years ago by a gendarmerie squad investigating the unsolved killings of prostitutes in Toulouse and an apparent cover-up by local police."

- June 1, 2003, The Observer: "Tales of orgies and murder rock France"

"Alègre, a policeman's son, organised the city's prostitution business, providing under-age girls for sadomasochistic orgies at a courthouse in the city and at a chateau owned by the town council. In a letter from his cell sent to TV presenter Karl Zero at the weekend, Alègre said that the former prostitutes, known as Patricia and Fanny, were telling the truth about the murders of two other prostitutes which they had witnessed but which he had previously denied... A vice squad detective allegedly assured Alègre, who worked in the police canteen, that [one of] the murder[s] would be classified as suicide..."

"The letter was written after Alègre met a magistrate to give details of unsolved crimes. Only part of the four-page document has been published but, according to a source who has read all of it, Alègre's confession "contains precise details about the places, situations and personalities involved in the orgies"... "

"One [accused] judge has admitted to drinking with Alègre and another has said that there was "some truth" in evidence from two former prostitutes of an official cover-up of Alègre's crimes. "

- June 3, 2003: The Guardian. "Toulouse officials ordered murder, says serial killer."

"The scandal over alleged links between top officials in Toulouse [4th largest French city] and France's most notorious serial killer deepened yesterday when a news magazine revealed allegations that the former mayor, Dominique Baudis, had a sexual relationship with the murderer, Patrice Alègre. Because Mr Baudis, head of CSA, the broadcasting watchdog, has vigorously denied being involved in sex and drug orgies organised by Alègre, newspapers have only published a partial account of the information leaking from lawyers close to the case. But L'Express reported that a judicial inquiry in Toulouse, closed to the public, had been told that Mr Baudis, a former TV newsreader, was known as Nénette and had met the killer at a city hotel for sado-masochistic sessions. A former call girl, "Patricia", told magistrates that she had been "offered" to Mr Baudis by Alègre at a Toulouse flat where she underwent three hours of torture that left scars. L'Express says she described Mr Baudis as Alègre's lover. "

- June 6, 2003, The Guardian: "Mayor's 'affair' with serial killer"

"Alegre, 35, is already serving a life sentence for murdering 10 women and raping two others. But police have continued investigating the unsolved murders of other young women during the 1990s, which they believed might be linked to him. Earlier this year they interviewed two prostitutes, Patricia and Fanny, who told them that he was in fact the pimp for a group of senior local government officials, supposedly explaining why it had taken so long to catch him. After repeated questioning, Alegre confirmed the prostitutes' claims. He said he organised sex parties at a city-owned mansion just outside Toulouse, providing cocaine, under-age girls and torture devices. Howls emanating from the mansion prompted neighbours to tell police they feared animals were being sacrificed and the prostitutes said three girls were killed during these orgies..."

"[In total] a serial killer, two prostitutes and a transvestite... said they had seen M Baudis at the orgies"

"M Baudis was questioned by investigators yesterday for the first time since the scandal broke in April, in the presence of Patricia, a prostitute now in jail awaiting trial for fabricating accusations. "Eye to eye, all I saw was an evasive look and a lowered gaze," he said. "She came with two policemen and left with two policemen. I arrived a free man and leave a free man. But I will continue to fight against those who have fabricated evidence." The senior investigating magistrate in Toulouse said he had received a letter from Patrice Alegre, the serial killer who accused M Baudis, in which he retracted his accusations. Later, the transvestite, Djamel, withdrew his claims that he had seen senior officials at orgies. "

- June 27, 2003, Daily Telegraph: 'Ex-mayor cleared of sex scandal'. Whatever happened here, anyone familiar with the Franklin case, the X-Dossiers or other high level sex scandals knows how easy it is to coerce witnesses and especially victim- witnesses into recanting their previous testimonies.

"Police are still searching for a group of men, who the children say arrived at Franck V.'s apartment in suits and ties, with their faces hidden behind masks — a striking contrast to the largely uneducated, unemployed defendants who fill the courtroom in rumpled sweatshirts and scuffed sneakers. Franck V.'s lawyer Pascal Rouiller says he is convinced the men were part of a sophisticated network of pedophiles who tapped into Angers' underbelly as word of the prostitution ring spread. They brought in customers who "had money, made appointments, and were punctual," Rouiller says. One man paid €458 for one sexual assault on a child, and Franck V.'s wife, Patricia, regularly took in about €1,200 a month. "Franck had telephone calls from the whole of France," says Rouiller. "He's a poor miserable man with no intelligence. He had no reason to have contact with people in Montpellier or Lille." Much like the pedophilia scandal that rocked Belgium in 1996, Angers is awash in suspicions that a wider ring of wealthy customers was among the child rapists, and is still at large."

- April 25, 2005, Time Magazine - Europe: 'A Town Called Angers; How one community in rural France is coping with allegations of systematic sexual abuse of children'

"The issue [of child abuse] has dominated Portuguese headlines since last November, when a newspaper published allegations of long-running abuse of children at the string of state-funded orphanages and schools run by the 200-year-old Casa Pia foundation. As fresh revelations emerged, a former secretary of state for the family spoke of a "network" that procured children for outsiders. Carlos Silvino, the Casa Pia driver alleged to be at the centre of the ring, was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing pupils. He has been charged on 35 counts of abuse, with prosecutors considering further charges. As police continued investigations a dozen suspects were formally named, seven of whom were arrested and taken to prison to await charges. Among them were Paulo Pedroso, an MP and number two in the opposition Socialist Party; Carlos Cruz, one of Portugal’s most popular television journalists and retired ambassador Jorge Ritto."

"Casa Pia director Catalina Pestana, who took over after the scandal broke, says doctors found more than a hundred of the 4500 current pupils had been repeatedly sexual abused, most aged between 10 and 13. In many cases, she adds, their muscle and tissue were so damaged that they suffered internal injuries. Pestana believes these may be the tip of the iceberg. For years, she says, there was a “blanket of silence” at the Casa Pia, with senior staff at best in denial, at worst complicit in the wrongdoing..."

"[The] investigation has been painfully slow, prompting suspicions that even if Silvino [the Casa Pia driver], whose initial trial has been twice postponed, is found guilty, better-connected abusers may go free..." "The Casa Pia affair has had one major positive effect in hugely raising public awareness about the sexual abuse of children. The number of incidents reported to police has soared, and last month thousands marched through Lisbon and three other Portuguese cities, calling for more action against child abuse."

- October 12, 2003, Sunday Herald: "Portugal shamed by child sex"

"A ferrari engine makes a deep, distinctive sound. When the children at Portugal's most famous orphanage heard the sports car roaring down the driveway, fear swept through the dormitories. The noise could mean only one thing: the man known as The Doctor was coming to call. Yet this medical practitioner had no intention of adhering to the ancient Hippocratic Oath. "

"Instead, arriving at Casa Pia (House of the Pious), a 17th century Lisbon orphanage where more than 4,000 children are cared for each year behind high stone walls, the doctor would summon selected boys and girls from their beds for examinations one night each week. Where possible, he chose deaf-mutes. After checking that the children were not suffering from any sexual infections, the doctor was joined by the orphanage caretaker, known as Bibi, who ushered the unfortunate children outside to a waiting van. With the doctor following in his red Ferrari, Bibi drove the van to the prestigious homes of some of the leading members of Lisbon society - ranging from Portuguese government ministers and high-ranking diplomats, to famous television stars and members of the judiciary. There, the children were repeatedly sexually abused. Some were allegedly drugged to make them compliant; others were plied with alcohol. This continued for years. Assaults were filmed; pictures of one attack were subsequently found at the home of a suspected paedophile in Paris. According to medical records, the victims' injuries were horrific - and consistent with serious sexual assault and rape. In witness statements, many were able to describe in minute detail the homes where they were taken and identifying marks on the bodies of their abusers."

"The existence of this so-called "magic circle" of the Portuguese establishment, allegedly involved in an international paedophile ring using boys and girls from Casa Pia, was last week likened to an earthquake waiting to shake Portugal to its foundations. New allegations about the scale of the network will be put before the country's highest court within the next few weeks. Amid rumours of links to other paedophile gangs across Europe and the U.S., international experts on child sex crimes and murders are expected to be in court when the case re-opens, four years after a group of victims broke a silence lasting more than 30 years."

"But what relevance does this have to the disappearance 170 days ago of four-year-old Madeleine McCann in Praia da Luz, about 280km from Lisbon? And what does it mean for Kate and Gerry McCann, who have not only had to cope with losing their child, but have also been subjects of a vicious campaign in the Portuguese press to smear them? It is crucial for two reasons; first because it proves what international crime agencies have long suspected: that Portugal has become a magnet for predatory paedophiles from around the world, using the country's lax laws and preying on the high numbers of poor, abandoned children. And second, because Paulo Rebelo, an urbane, methodical detective who led the Casa Pia paedophile inquiry, was last night finishing his first week as the new chief of the investigation into the disappearance of the British child."

"Rebelo has replaced Goncalo Amaral, the "oafish" local police chief out of his depth in a case that has captured unprecedented world attention, with millions fascinated by the story of the girl snatched from her bed on holiday while her parents ate with friends 200 yards away. The sight of the sweaty, corpulent Amaral in restaurants and cafes near the Portimao police headquarters had become commonplace since Madeleine disappeared. While the McCanns were warned repeatedly they faced jail for speaking about the case, he was been overheard, during his daily three-hour lunches of wine and shellfish, accusing the couple of killing their daughter. In one conversation with Portugal's ex-Formula One racing driver Pedro Lamy, Amaral revealed he was convinced the McCanns drugged their daughter and accidentally killed her. "The police case is we are sure the parents killed Madeleine. They are both doctors and know about drugs. "We are confident in our case," he said."

"In an effort to make up for lost time following Amaral's dismissal, Rebelo has recruited his own men from Lisbon. To the fury of the original officers, he has lost little time in sidelining them, bringing in two child sex experts from the Casa Pia case as well as homicide specialists and computer analysts - known as "the cleaners" due to their reputation for leaving no stone unturned. According to senior police sources, he also launched a furious private attack on the 100 officers involved in the original inquiry, which he has now cut back to 40. At a meeting, he accused some officers of having "closed minds" about who was guilty, saying that "pre-conceptions should be challenged". In addition, he oversaw Operation Predator - raids on more than 70 suspected paedophiles, whose computers were searched last week for images of Madeleine or other evidence of criminal sexual acts. Although by last night Rebelo had failed to make a breakthrough, sources say it is a clear sign, along with reports that Russian child traffickers may be involved, of a strand of his current thinking. In a Lisbon café, an associate of Rebelo told the Mail: "The Casa Pia case had a deep affect on Paulo. You come across things that are appalling and cruel. But you get a feeling that there are some seriously bad people in the world, and some of them are here. He does not rule anything out." So, after enduring months of soul-destroying leaks from the Portuguese police - from claims that they drugged Madeleine and then disposed of her body, to allegations that Gerry was not even her real father - the McCanns are no longer the sole focus of the Portuguese police investigation."

"But the nightmare goes on. A group of officers loyal to Amaral are still leaking smears to the Portuguese press. The latest? That bodily fluids from Madeleine's corpse were found in the boot of the couple's hire care and that "background checks" were to be carried out on Gerry McCann's laptop. And then the police "sources" claimed that Kate killed Madeleine without telling Gerry, and that the body was "refrigerated" before being dumped up to 25 days later."

"His career in tatters and now back on desk duties in Faro, Amaral faces a criminal hearing in the case of another missing child, Joana Cipriano, after being accused of concealing evidence that the girl's mother was tortured into confessing to her murder. Amaral and his colleagues face countless unanswered questions about mistakes in the original police investigation into Maddie's disappearance, such as failing to ensure the McCanns' apartment was sealed off for forensics. (This did not happen until the next day, by which time the McCanns, their friends, resort staff and detectives had traipsed through, destroying potentially vital evidence.) They also failed to seal off the Mark Warner Ocean Club resort. No roadblocks were set up and police on the Spanish border - two hours' drive away - were not alerted for 12 hours. Staff were only quizzed 60 hours later. And the CCTV footage from a busy main road was never studied. The list of mistakes goes on."

"While the shift in the investigation may ease the intolerable pressure on the McCanns, it will do little to console them. As well as growing fears that Madeleine was abducted by a paedophile ring, they can have little hope of justice when leading Portuguese figures are allegedly involved in covering-up their own child sex scandal. Both cases - the two highestprofile criminal investigations in the country since the end of the Portuguese military dictatorship in 1974 - have been riven by allegations of compromised police officers, high-level interference and vicious, virulent attacks on key witnesses. Pedro Namora, a former Casa Pia orphan who witnessed 11 rapes on fellow orphans, during which they were tied to their beds, sympathises with the McCanns. He believes elements in the force have conspired to suppress both scandals, fearing damage to the country's reputation. "Portugal is a paedophiles' paradise," said Mr Namora, now a lawyer campaigning on behalf of the Casa Pia victims. "If all the names come out, this will be an earthquake in Portugal. There is a massive, sophisticated network at play here - stretching from the government to the judiciary and the police. "The network is enormous and extremely powerful. There are magistrates, ambassadors, police, politicians - all have procured children from Casa Pia. It is extremely difficult to break this down. These people cover for each other, because if one is arrested, they all are arrested. They don't want anyone to know." Now 44, Mr Namora watched as friends sank into alcoholism, drug addiction and death after their traumatic childhood experiences at Casa Pia. "I was the only one who made it," he said. "What could I do? I couldn't keep silent." He has received death threats and warnings about what will happen to his own children, after taking up the case when an orphan called "Joel" approached him, saying prominent paedophiles were using Casa Pia as a "supermarket for children". Mr Namora has been threatened after fighting on behalf of the abused children he grew up with. After being telephoned by a stranger offering to pay off his mortgage, he was told the exact movements of his own three children, and warned that they and their father would come to a grisly end unless he shut up. An open, warm man, Mr Namora makes an unlikely conspiracytheorist-But he believes the case, which he brought to light in 2003, will underscore Portugal's growing attraction for paedophiles, which has seen six children disappear in recent years. One reason for this attraction is that the law was quietly relaxed last year, ahead of the forthcoming trial, meaning that repeat offences against the same child would merit only a single charge - and a lesser sentence."

"In echoes of the McCanns' ordeal, the initial investigation was badly handled when allegations of abuse were first made at Casa Pia in 1982. Carlos Silvino, the man known as Bibi, was linked to rapes and assaults, but police "lost" pictures showing prominent Lisbon politicians with him and the children. He was only charged after dozens of children came forward in 2003. They also accused Jorge Ritto, a former Portuguese ambassador, of child abuse. Ritto, it transpired, had also once been sent home in disgrace from a posting in Germany after an incident involving a young boy in a park. The conspiracy did not end there. Teresa Costa Macedo, a former secretary of state for the family, has revealed that she knew about the attacks in the early Eighties - and that she had alerted General Antonio Ramalho Eanes, the then Portuguese president, about the allegations. Mrs Costa Macedo, who remained silent for two decades after being warned she would be killed if she spoke, now says that the caretaker "was just one element in a huge paedophile network that involved important people in our country. It wasn't just him [the caretaker]. He was a procurer of children for well-known people who range from diplomats and politicians to people linked to the media". While still a government minister, Costa Macedo handed police "photographs, an account of the methods used to spirit children out of the orphanage and testimonies of a number of children". Many of the photographs were found at ex-ambassador Jorge Ritto's house. Police reportedly found four children locked up who had been missing from Casa Pia."

"Under armed guard at a safe house last week, Bibi could count himself a lucky man. He originally faced allegations that he had sexually assaulted more than 600 children. That has since been reduced to 30. Silvino has hinted at the high-level of the conspiracy, saying: "They can't touch me - there are too many people involved." Following Ritto's arrest, the police questioned Carloz Cruz, known as Portugal's "Mr Television", and Joao Diniz, a high- society doctor and driver of the red Ferrari. The network allegedly went further. Paulo Pedroso, a government minister, was arrested and quizzed about 15 cases of child sexual abuse."

"Amid allegations that paedophile networks have become endemic in Portugal - the European police force Interpol has named the country as one of the worst offenders in Europe - there are fears that the Casa Pia scandal will come to eclipse Belgium's notorious Marc Dutroux case, in which the arrest of a notorious paedophile and child murderer revealed a sordid picture of judicial and political corruption."

"Of course, the Casa Pia case may have no direct link to the disappearance of Madeleine, but the culture in which such a serious child abuse network was allowed to operate is the same culture that pervades the whole of Portugal. Was it this attitude that led to the bungled initial investigation in the McCann case? Perhaps the appointment of the man who exposed the Casa Pia scandal will give the parents of Maddie hope that a proper investigation will now discover the truth."

- October 20, 2007, The Daily Mail: 'Why Portugal is a haven for paedophiles - the disturbing backcloth to the Madeleine case'

"An investigative journalist working on behalf of The Portugal News has obtained a list of the attendees at the Paris meeting, which was held at the Trianon Hotel between the 15th and 18th of May. Durão Barroso was in the company of former Prime Minister, Francisco Balsemão, who is presently chairman and chief executive officer of Impresa Corporation. Also in tow was Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, leader of the opposition Socialist Party. The opposition leader’s press officer told The Portugal News that Mr. Rodrigues attended the conference for three and a half days."

"Mr. Rodrigues is currently fighting off a paedophile scandal, following the arrest of Socialist MP Paulo Pedroso and claims, in some newspapers that the PS leader has also been accused of limited involvement. "

- May 31, 2003, The Portugal News: 'Barroso bombed-off to Bilderberg meeting?'

"The winter's most explosive news concerned a parliamentary investigation into the alleged connection of senior public officials with the sexual abuse of underage boys. The story began last fall when police broke up a child-pornography ring. The matter took a political turn as revelations surfaced that several high-level government officials were involved. In late September, the Saeima (parliament) created a committee to investigate the matter..."

"Lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction with the procurator's investigation, charging that it was proceeding too slowly. In early December, Deputy Janis Adamsons (Social Democratic Party [SDP]), chairman of the investigative committee, publicly questioned Procurator General Janis Skrastins's commitment to the case. Adamsons also began to gather signatures from parliamentarians to request the Supreme Court to evaluate Skrastins's investigation. According to the Law on the Procurator, a minimum of 34 signatures of MPs is required to initiate a review, which could ultimately lead to a procurator's dismissal. By the end of December, a majority of deputies (52) from all parliamentary factions had signed the request. Nevertheless, a judge of the Supreme Court, Andris Gulans, announced he would not initiate a review, arguing that the deputies had not observed the neces-sary formalities. A few days later, however, the deputies resubmitted their request to Gulans, who finally relented, nominating Justice Voldemars Cizevski to review Skrastins's performance. Preempting any possible negative evaluation, Skrastins abruptly announced his resignation on January 3..."

"During the entire period of the commission's investigation, numerous rumors circulated to the effect that the commission had statements confirming the involvement of senior officials. But, because there was no direct evidence, the commission could not agree on whether the names of those officials should be released to the public. Particularly active in the commission was its chairman, Janis Adamsons, a representative of the opposition SDP, who served as minister of the interior in the mid-1990s. Many questioned Adamsons's keen interest in the matter since, while the case was unfolding, he was himself the subject of a long-drawn-out court case related to his past ties with the KGB... "

"Adamsons and his commission continued their investigation, scheduled to end on February 15. Although they were granted an extension and the investigation continued, two days later, Adamsons announced in parliament that the names of high-ranking officials-including Prime Minister Andris Skele, former minister of foreign affairs and prime minister and the current minister of justice, Valdis Birkavs, and the chief of the State Revenue Service, Andrejs Sonciks-had been mentioned in the investigation. Allegedly, no concrete evidence impli-cates these individuals. Adamsons recently stated "even in my worst nightmare, I could not imagine that the homosexual brotherhood has such a great influence in the government" and claimed that the witnesses described a government run by a "homosexual mafia.""

"The public officials named by Adamsons stood steadfast in the face of the accusations and refused to resign their positions. Rather, they requested that the Latvia.procurator general investigate Adamsons's statements. Birkavs, one of the country's foremost legal scholars, declared he was being slandered and announced his intention to pursue a hunger strike until Adamsons publicly revealed all the evidence of the commission. The procurator's office indicated it did not have any evidence to confirm Adamsons's statements. Yet a few days later, the procurator general confirmed that in some of the investigative materials the officials named by Adamsons indeed had been mentioned."

"Some observers surmised that the scandal would bring down the government. The coalition has refused to resign but the entire matter has damaged the public's trust in political officials. Adamsons has now refused to hand over the commission's findings until a new procu-rator general is named. Until then, the findings of the investigation will remain off-limits to the public."

- Winter/Spring 2000, New York University School of Law, East European Constitutional Review, Volume 9 Numbers 1/2:

"A year-long paedophilia investigation by Queensland's Criminal Justice Commission yesterday dismissed as "scuttlebutt" allegations that police, judges and MPs were involved in and had protected a paedophile ring. It also rejected allegations that pornographic "snuff movies" had been filmed in Queensland, reporting there was no evidence such movies existed anywhere in the world. Former judge Jack Kimmins, who conducted the inquiry, also found the contents of some files gathered by former police chief Terry Lewis were capable of being used for blackmail, but there was no evidence he had, or proposed to, blackmail anyone."

- September 10, 1998, The Australian: 'Paedophilia finding'. Since at least the mid-1990s there have been regular accusations of high level child abuse, torture and murder in Australia. All the accusations have been dismissed, but it's hard not to notice the similarities with accusations in other Western countries.

"The Bussum businessman Ronnie Galiart has to appear in front of a judge in September. He is suspected of having smuggled thousands of liters of PMK (an ingredient for XTC) into the Netherlands, packed in honey from China... In those days Ronnie belonged to the network of the Gooi real estate farmer W.F.M. Mijnhardt, who not only continually expanded his capital in the o.g. sector, but also, according to the new publication of the intelligence magazine Fringe, in the cocaine- and diamond smuggle..." "The [Dutch] Criminal Investigation Department [Rijksrecherche] brought to light that the organization of Mijnhardt kept 253 notable members of society, including mayors, bank directors and officials from the police and the district attorney's office, at gunpoint with images of their sexual escapades in the Spiegelhuis [Mirror House], a luxerious brothel in Zeist... By the way, the Spiegelhuis apparently wouldn't be the only location where high society of this sort went loose and dropped their pants. Also in Ameide this would have happened in the so-called pink ballets. We're waiting for the Dutch Dr. Pinon."

- July 2, 2001, Kleintje - Muurkrant, 'Pink Ballets (5)':

"In the spring of 1999, on the eve of the controversial revelations of the Kalsbeek Commission about the "escorted transit" of at least 15,000 kilos of cocaine, Teeven provided the college of Prosecuter Generals with a list of individuals from the top echelons of the Dutch society who had maneuvered themselves in different blackmailable positions. In 24 cases the persons involved had unthoughtfully dropped their pants. Some of them with the intention of mounting children. A portion of this information Teeven would undoubtedly have distilled from the reports of his deal-partner [Mink Kok, a well known Dutch gangster]. Worried, Congress asked minister of Justice Korthals what that Teeven's List was all about. Korthals summoned the [Dutch] Criminal Investigation Department [Rijksrecherche]. This one put the pedal to the metal. Already in December more than eighty dossiers had been worked through and a relieved Korthals could give his report to the worried members of Congress. Yes, in several cases there indeed had been some mild form of dubious actions. And yes, here and there we were dealing with pedophilia. But nowhere the CID had been able to bring up crystal clear facts. So in reality nothing serious was going on. We keep the finger to the pulse. Merry Christmas and a happy new year. Within police circles this very quick whitewash was received with mixed emotion. Because there certainly was clear information available. For instance the sexual escapades of professor Dr. Job de Ruiter. Professor in personal-, family- and youth law [University of Amsterdam], former minister of Justice in the cabinets of Van Agt I, II and III and minister of Defense in the cabinet of Lubbers I. After that [he was] prosecuter general in Amsterdam [and] head of numerous investigating committees..."

In 2006, Job de Ruiter and others unsuccessfully tried to prevent the publishing of the book 'Een Man Tegen De Staat' ('One Man Against The State'), which repeated the accusations that he used to be blackmailed by his subordinate officers because they knew about him molesting young boys. Another top officer who is seperately accused of involvement in child trafficking- and pedophile networks is Joris Demmink, secretary general of the Dutch Justice Department who began his career in the legal department of the Ministry of Defense. klokkenluider online.nl, ran by (formerly) respected mainstream journalists, is increasingly paying attention to these sex scandals.

"A homosexual prostitution ring is under investigation by federal and District authorities and includes among its clients key officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations, military officers, congressional aides and US and foreign businessmen with close social ties to Washington's political elite, documents obtained by The Washington Times reveal."

"One of the ring's high-profile clients was so well-connected, in fact, that he could arrange a middle-of-the-night tour of the White House for his friends on Sunday, July 3, of last year. Among the six persons on the extraordinary 1 a.m. tour were two male prostitutes."

"Federal authorities, including the Secret Service, are investigating criminal aspects of the ring and have told male prostitutes and their homosexual clients that a grand jury will deliberate over the evidence throughout the summer, The Times learned."

"Reporters for this newspaper examined hundreds of credit-card vouchers, drawn on both corporate and personal cards and made payable to the escort service operated by the homosexual ring..."

"Among the client names contained in the vouchers - and identified by prostitutes and escort operators - are government officials, locally based US military officers, businessmen, lawyers, bankers, congressional aides and other professionals..."

"The office of US Attorney General Jay B. Stephens, former deputy White House counsel to President Reagan, is coordinating federal aspects of the inquiry but refused to discuss the investigation or grand jury actions."

"Several former White House colleagues of Mr. Stephen are listed among clients of the homosexual prostitution ring, according to the credit card records, and those persons have confirmed that the charges were theirs."

"One of the ring’s big spending clients is Craig J. Spence, Washington socialite and international trade consultant, according to documents and interviews with operators and prostitutes who say they engaged in sexual activities with Mr. Spence."

"Mr. Spence spent upwards of $20,000 a month for male prostitutes who provided sex to him and his friends, said to include military personnel who also acted as his “bodyguards.” It was Mr. Spence who arranged the nocturnal tour of the Reagan White House. Repeated attempts to reach Mr. Spence by telephone, fax machine and personal visits to his home, were unsuccessful..."

"Members of major news organizations also procured escort services from the ring, credit card documents show. These include Stanley Mark Tapscott, who was an assistant managing editor of The Washington Times... Before joining The Times, Mr. Tapscott worked for the Office of Personnel Management in the Reagan administration..."

"The documents show that a number of clients — lawyers, doctors and business executives — used corporate credit cards to procure escort services and that a number of military officers from the United States and allied countries — including one foreign officer using a "Department of Defence" credit card — charged male escort services..."

"A major concern, said the former official with longtime ties to top-ranking military intelligence officers, was that hostile foreign intelligence services were using young male prostitutes to compromise top administration homosexuals, thus making them subject to blackmail."

"We have known for many, many years that there is a department of the KGB [Soviet intelligence] whose job it is to prey on sexual deviants,” said retired Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. [interestingly, Graham is a Moonie cult ally whose Washington Post exposed this scandal. He also was a top-level CIA officer]..."

"Although the confiscated material was turned over to District police on the scene, witnesses and law enforcement agents say the Secret Service kept one box containing names and other information about high-level government officials who were clients of the male escort business. District police officials say that, to their knowledge, this is the first time the Secret Service has ever become involved in such a raid in this area. Initially, the Secret Service denied it was involved in the raid, but after a second raid of the 34th Place house on May 18, the agency acknowledged its involvement in the investigation..."

"In addition to credit-card fraud, the investigation is said to be focused on illegal interstate prostitution, abduction and use of minors for sexual perversion, extortion, larceny and related illicit drug trafficking and use by prostitutes and their clients."

"One of the chief operators of Professional Services Inc. and a regular client of the service speculated in separate interviews that the investigation would be restricted because “big names” were involved."

"Henry Vinson [the operator] said a high level official is going to try to block the investigation and may succeed," said Mr. Balach, the labor secretary's liaison to the White House. Mr. Vinson said he believes a highly placed federal official, whom he would not name, is working to derail the investigation, but he would not elaborate."

"Operators of the ring told The Times that videotapes, audio tapes and still photographs were made of sex acts performed by clients and the call boys, including perverted acts."

- June 29, 1989, Washington Times: 'Homosexual prostitution inquiry ensnares VIPs with Reagan, Bush; ‘Call boys’ took midnight tour of White House'. Follow-up research by Senator John DeCamp showed how Craig Spence, the one who had arranged the midnight White House tour, was a business partner of Larry King, the central pimp in the Franklin affair. Spence did blackmail operations for the CIA.

"The room where Craig J. Spence died was awash in the small mysteries and ironies that had followed him - and that he had perpetuated - since he came to Washington in the late 1970s, already an enigmatic figure with strange Asian connections and friends in high places." "On the bed was a newspaper clipping referring to CIA undercover agents. Scrawled on the mirror was a note written to some unnamed "chief," which also contained an obscure phrase in Japanese, "Nisei Bei," which means second-generation American..."

"During the past few weeks, Mr. Spence told several friends that he knew "for a fact" that the call-boy operation was being investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office and other federal authorities as a CIA front. He told the friends the CIA used the service to compromise other federal intelligence officials and foreign diplomats."

"Mr. Spence claimed in the interview that he had worked for the CIA on numerous occasions and had been instrumental in a number of covert actions in Vietnam, Japan, Central America and the Middle East - a claim denied by the agency."

"How do you think a little faggot like me moved in the circles I did?" he said. "It's because I had contacts at the highest levels of this government."

"They'll deny it. But how do they make me go away, when so many of them have been at my house, at my parties and at my side?"

"Among those who attended his parties and were featured at seminars he sponsored were journalists Eric Sevareid, Ted Koppel, William Safire and Liz Trotta; former Ambassadors Robert Neumann, Elliott Richardson and James Lilly; the late John Mitchell, attorney general in the Nixon administration; Mr. Casey and other CIA officials, including Ray Cline, former deputy director of intelligence for the agency; former Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham, an expert on the Strategic Defense Initiative who now heads High Frontier Inc.; Sen. John Glenn, Ohio Democrat, and Sen. Frank Murkowski, Alaska Republican; and Joseph diGenova, former U.S. attorney in Washington, and his wife, Victoria Toensing, a former deputy assistant attorney general. Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-in-chief of The Times, attended a party for Mr. Lilly hosted by Mr. Spence at the former lobbyist's Kalorama home."

"Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-in-chief of The Times, attended a party for Mr. Lilly hosted by Mr. Spence at the former lobbyist's Kalorama home..."

"Prostitutes who said they serviced Mr. Spence and military personnel whom the former lobbyist hired as bodyguards..."

"Secret Service officials have publicly stated there was no breach of security during the tours and that they had no concern that entry was made by the late-night visitors into unauthorized areas of the White House..."

"Meanwhile, several members of Congress, federal officials, military officers and others have told The Times that they are concerned that the lavish parties and Japanese-sponsored seminars thrown by Mr. Spence, at which the elite of Washington and officials from Japan, China and elsewhere mingled, might have compromised U.S. security."

"Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, Maryland Republican, for one, recently questioned the former lobbyist's ties to the Japanese government in a speech on the floor of the House. Citing news articles in the United States and Japan, Mrs. Bentley asked whether plans for the F-16 jet had been transferred by Mr. Spence to a Japanese government official, Motoo Shiina, and later turned over to the Soviet Union."

"I bring this to the floor today, Mr. Speaker, because I am frankly puzzled that these stories are out - in print both in Japan and in America -and there seems to be no official investigation into what to me are very grave charges," she said."

-November 13, 1989, Washington Times: 'Spence as much an enigma in death as he was in life '

"Craig J. Spence, the once-powerful lobbyist who entertained and influenced Washington's elite, died Friday much as he had lived: dressed in a tuxedo in Boston's most expensive hotel, listening to Mozart with three dollars in his pocket... With a black felt-tip marker he had written, "Chief, consider this my resignation, effective immediately. As you always said, you can't ask others to make a sacrifice if you are not ready to do the same. Life is duty. God bless America." As a postscript, he wrote, "To the Ritz, please forgive this inconvenience...""

"One friend quoted him as saying, "Casey's boys are out to get me," an apparent reference to former CIA Director William Casey, now deceased. Mr. Casey and Mr. Spence were friends, and the former CIA director attended parties hosted by the former lobbyist..." "During a lengthy interview at a Manhattan apartment in August, Mr. Spence frequently alluded to deep mysteries. "All this stuff you've uncovered (involving call boys, bribery and the White House tours), to be honest with you, is insignificant compared to other things I've done. But I'm not going to tell you those things, and somehow the world will carry on..."

"He also talked frequently of suicide, saying repeatedly, "My life is over." He reserved deep bitterness for high-powered friends he said had forsaken him. "I've had the world at my house, and now they don't know who I am," he said. "But they did come, didn't they?""

-November 13, 1989, Washington Times: 'In death, Spence stayed true to form'

"Witnesses testified at Senate hearings Tuesday that child abuse, bizarre medical practices and sexual promiscuity took place at a Pentagon-funded Florida school for disturbed youngsters. Sen. Henry M. Jackson [a neo-conservatice godfather], D-Wash., said two former nurses and a Senate investigator described "nightmare" conditions at the Green Valley School in Orange City, Fla. "I just couldn't believe this happened in America," said Jackson, head of the Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee which is holding the hearings..."

"The two nurses, Esther, J. Snow of Daytona Beach, Fla., and Ruth McVay of Deltona, Fla., said students were given enormous vitamin overdoses and injections of serums made from dust collected on the school grounds and, in one case, of a student's own urine. They also described the use of electroshock therapy, and carbon, dioxide inhalations. The nurses said sexual promiscuity was widespread both among the students and the school staff."

"The investigator, John J. Walsh of the subcommittee staff, produced a statement and a detailed "chronology" alleging that one student committed suicide with a gun that von Hilsheimer had permitted him to buy, and that another ex- student was beaten to death by members of a satanic cult led by a student still in the school..."

"The nurses charged that the school was kept in a filthy state with students sleeping on dirty sheets, cockroaches infesting most of the buildings, poor sanitary conditions in the kitchens, and unclean lavatories. They also said students sometimes were beaten; that they once saw an electric cattle prod used on a youth; that one boy was locked in a concrete blockhouse called ''the bomb-shelter" for nearly a week without food; that some students were chained together, and in one instance two boys were forced to dig graves and sleep in them for a night."

"The military children were sent there by their own parents, often after being diagnosed by military doctors as suffering from adolescent behavior disorders."

- July 24, 1974, Long Beach Independent, 'Child abuse at Pentagon-funded school told'. One of the earliest reports in which Satanism and child abuse were (loosely) combined (in an interesting setting, sounding like a MK-ULTRA offshoot). It would take another ten years before reports about Satanic cults abusing children would become really mainstream in the US, and fifteen years before these reports reached the UK.

"Prosecution of child molestation cases is being derailed around the country because young victims are lacing their testimony with macabre tales of satanic rites, authorities say. Although sexual abuse is medically proven in many of these case, the charges frequently crumble when preschoolers tell of drugging and assault in bloody occult ceremonies, says San Francisco police officer Sandi Gallant "Any district attorney will tell you going to court with a child under 5 is next to impossible, much less one blaming the devil." she said. But investigators are curious about similarities they're hearing in such testimony from youngsters in unrelated and geographically separate cases. "The main thing in the stories I've heard is the great consistency in the types of things the kids were reporting — all across the country the descriptions were very similar," Gallant said. "In the last three years there have been about 60 to 70 solid cases ... ones where investigations were actively pursued.' The federally funded American Humane Association in Denver says 113,000 child molestations where reported nationwide in 1985, the last year for which statistics were compiled. That figure is up from 100,000 reported cases in 1984... In 75 percent of reported cases, abuse comes from within the family, Bond said..."

"Gallant cited several molestation cases where charges were dropped or reduced after satanic allegations surfaced or where only sex crimes were prosecuted for fear of losing the cases by including testimony about cult ceremonies. She mentioned cases in Los Angeles; San Francisco; Miami; Boston; Atlanta; Port Angeles, Wash.; Jordan, Minn., and El Paso, Texas. "Many if not most cases go absolutely nowhere despite physical evidence supporting accusations of molestation," Gallant said. "Few (agencies) have the manpower, time or money to pursue cases deemed likely to lose.""

"The medical profession has maintained a scientific distance from ritual abuse allegations, and that frustrates pediatrician Gregory Simpson of Carson, Calif- Ritual scarring in patients prompted Simpson to research the issue in 1985-86 during his residency at Martin Luther King Hospital in Los Angeles, where he now teaches. In addition to studying police files, he cared for four children who had ritual scars and exhibited behavior indicating they'd been abused rather than sexually assaulted. One dead girl's chest was carved with a pentagram, he said. "The conclusion I reached is that satanic abuse of small children does exist, and it's something that needs to be dealt with by the medical community," he said."

"A 1985 Florida conviction is one of few successful satanic child abuse prosecutions. Frank Fuster received several life sentences based largely on the testimony of his 17-year-old wife, Iliana. Children at the Fuster baby-sitting service could recite a satanic prayer allegedly learned there and told of daily molestation."

"In California, the McMartin Pre-School case involved accusations of animal mutilations and sacrifices. Raymond Buckey, 29, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 60, are being tried on 100 molestation and conspiracy counts involving 14 children. Charges against five other defendants were dropped."

- December 13, 1987, Syracuse Herald Journal (based on an AP story): 'Blaming the devil' hurts prosecution of child abuse cases'

"Tallahassee, Fla (AP): - "Two men arrested after being seen in a park with six children dressed in tatters were held Friday on child abuse charges, and police said the men may be part of an international satanic cult whose members give up their children..."

"They evidently have come from such sheltered existences that they had no concept of what a telephone was, or TV or anything like that." Scott Hunt, spokesman for the Tallahassee Police Department, said Thursday..."

"Police were alerted Wednesdav by anonymous callers concerned because the men were dressed in coats and lies while the children, unwashed and insectbitten, were plaving in tattered clothes at Myers Park, a downtown playground."

"Upon questioning after their arrest Wednesday the men said the children were being "weaned" from their mothers in Washington. They said they were taking the children to Mexico to start a school for brilliant children. They denied any blood relationship with the children and refused to answer other questions..."

"The oldest child and a 2 year old boy claimed to be brother and sister and said Houlihan was their father. The other children were a 3 year-old girl and three boys, ages 6, 4 and 2, authorities said. Medical exams showed one child had been sexuallv abused, Hunt said Friday."

"On the basis of evidence found in a van at the park, District of Columbia police executed search warrants Thursday night at a warehouse and a home. "The search warrant revealed that the organization is probably head quarters for some type of satanic cult", said Hunt. Adults are encouraged to join this group and one of the stipulators of joining this group is that they give up the rights of their children..."

"As far as we are concerned this goes from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico," Hunt said, adding that authorities were unsure of the extent of the group's activities but wanted the widest possible investigation."

- February 7, 1987, The News Frederick Maryland & The Post Standard: "Men found with children charged with abuse."

"On Thursday, February 5, 1987, this office was contacted via telephone by Sergeant JoAnn VanMeter of the Tallahassee Police Department, Juvenile Division. Sgt. VanMeter requested assistance in identifying two adult males and six minor children ages 7 years to 2 years..."

"The police had received an anonymous telephone call relative two well-dressed white men wearing suits and ties in Myers Park, (Tallahassee), apparently watching six dirty and unkempt children in the playground area. Houlihan and Ammerman were near a 1980 Blue Dodge van bearing Virginia license number XHW-557, the inside of which was later described as foul-smelling, filled with maps, books, letters, with a mattress situated to the rear of the van which appeared as if it were used as a bed, and the overall appearance of the van gave the impression that all eight persons were living in it."

"The children were covered with insect bites, were very dirty, most of the children were not wearing underwear and all of the children had not been bathed in many days... The children were observed to be poorly dressed, bruised, dirty, and behaving like wild animals in a public park in Tallahassee ... SS/A Krietlow was further advised the children were unaware of the function and purpose of telephones, televisions and toilets, and that the children had stated they were not allowed to live indoors and were only given food as a reward ..."

"The men were arrested and charged with multiple counts of child abuse and lodged in the Leon County Jail. Once in custody the men were somewhat evasive in their answers to the police regarding the children and stated only that they both were the children's teachers and that all were en-route to Mexico to establish a school for brilliant children ..."

"Upon contacting Detective Bradley, I learned that he had initiated an investigation on the two addresses provided by the Tallahassee Police Dept. during December of 1986. An informant had given him information regarding a cult, known as the ‘Finders’ operating various businesses out of a warehouse located at 1307 4th St., N.E., and were supposed to be housing children at 3918/3920 W St., N.W. The information was specific in describing 'blood rituals' and sexual orgies involving children, and an as yet unsolved murder in which the Finders may be involved. With the information provided by the informant, Detective Bradley was able to match some of the children in Tallahassee with names of children known or alleged to be in the custody of the Finders. Furthermore, Bradley was able to match the tentative ID of the adults with known members of the Finders. I stood by while Bradley consulted with AUSA Harry Benner and obtained search warrants for the two premises. I advised acting RAC SS/A Tim Halloran of my intention to accompany MPD on the execution of the warrants, received his permission, and was joined by SS/A Harrold. SS/A Harrold accompanied the team which went to 1307 4th St., and I went to 3918/20 W St."

"During the execution of the warrant at 3918/20 W St., I was able to observe and access the entire building ... There were several subjects on the premises. Only one was deemed to be connected with the Finders. [He] was located in a room equipped with several computers, printers, and numerous documents. Cursory examination of the documents revealed detailed instructions for obtaining children for unspecified purposes. The instructions included the impregnation of female members of the community known as the Finders, purchasing children, trading, and kidnapping. There were telex messages using MCI account numbers between a computer terminal believed to be located in the same room, and others located across the country and in foreign locations. One such telex specifically ordered the purchase of two children in Hong Kong to be arranged through a contact in the Chinese Embassy there. Another telex expressed interest in 'bank secrecy' situations. Other documents identified interests in high-tech transfers to the United Kingdom, numerous properties under the control of the Finders, a keen interest in terrorism, explosives, and the evasion of law enforcement. Also found in the 'computer room' was a detailed summary of the events surrounding the arrest and taking into custody of the two adults and six children in Tallahassee the previous night. There were also a set of instructions which appeared to be broadcast via a computer network which advised the participants to move 'the children' and keep them moving through different jurisdictions, and instructions on how to avoid police attention ..."

"On Friday, 2/6/87, I met Detective Bradley at the warehouse on 4th Street, N.E. I duly advised my acting group supervisor, SS/A Don Bludworth. I was again granted unlimited access to the premises. I was able to observe numerous documents which described explicit sexual conduct between the members of the community known as Finders. I also saw a large collection of photographs of unidentified persons. Some of the photographs were nudes, believed to be of members of the Finders. There were numerous photos of children, some nude, at least one of which was a photo of a child 'on display' and appearing to accent the child's genitals. I was only able to examine a very small amount of the photos at this time. However, one of the officers presented me with a photo album for my review. The album contained a series of photos of adults and children dressed in white sheets participating in a 'blood ritual.' The ritual centered around the execution of at least two goats. The photos portrayed the execution, disembowelment, skinning and dismemberment of the goats at the hands of the children. This included the removal of the testes of a male goat, the discovery of a female goat's ‘womb’ and the ‘baby goats’ inside the womb, and the presentation of a goat's head to one of the children."

"Further inspection of the premises disclosed numerous files relating to activities of the organization in different parts of the world. Locations I observed are as follows: London, Germany, the Bahamas, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Africa, Costa Rica, and 'Europe.' There was also a file identified as 'Palestinian.' Other files were identified by member name or 'project' name. The projects appearing to be operated for commercial purposes under front names for the Finders. There was one file entitled 'Pentagon Break-In,' and others referring to members operating in foreign countries. Not observed by me but related by an MPD officer were intelligence files on private families not related to the Finders. The process undertaken appears to be have been a systematic response to local newspaper advertisements for babysitters, tutors, etc. A member of the Finders would respond and gather as much information as possible about the habits, identity, occupation, etc., of the family. The use to which this information was to be put is still unknown. There was also a large amount of data collected on various child care organizations."

"The warehouse contained a large library, two kitchens, a sauna, hot-tub, and a 'video room.' The video room seemed to be set up as an indoctrination center. It also appeared that the organization had the capability to produce its own videos. There were what appeared to be training areas for children and what appeared to be an altar set up in a residential area of the warehouse. Many jars of urine and feces were located in this area..."

"On April 2, 1987, I arrived at MPD at approximately 9:00 a.m. Detective Bradley was not available. I spoke to a third party who was willing to discuss the case with me on a strictly 'off the record' basis."

"I was advised that all the passport data had been turned over to the State Department for their investigation. The State Department in turn advised the MPD that all travel and use of the passports by the holders of the passports was within the law and no action would be taken. This included travel to Moscow, North Korea, and North Vietnam from the late 1950s to mid 1970s."

"The individual further advised me of circumstances which indicated that the investigation into the activity of the Finders had become a CIA internal matter. The MPD report has been classified SECRET and was not available for review. I was advised that the FBI had withdrawn from the investigation several weeks prior and that the FBI Foreign Counter Intelligence Division had directed MPD not to advise the FBI Washington Field Office of anything that had transpired."

- A series of 1987 memos written by special agent Ramon J. Martinez, United States Customs Service, who was closely involved in the Finders case. This document has been spread on the internet and doesn't seem to have an authoritative source that released it. Nevertheless, the document matches the newspaper reports about the case perfectly.

"Florida officials on Monday interviewed five District of Columbia women claiming to be the mothers of six children taken into state custody with two men Feb. 4... [Finders case]"

"The women arrived Friday in their effort to gain custody of the children, ages 2 to 7. They were identified as Kristin Knauth, 26, a free-lance writer and editor; Carolyn Said, 28, a writer and editor; Pat Livingstone, 43, an office worker; Judy Evans, 31, a writer and editor, and Paula Arico, 33, a bookkeeper who says she is the mother of two of the children."

"Ms. Walborsky [the attorney representing the mothers]: "They [the mothers] have nothing to hide. Cooperation would be the fastest way to get what they want — the kids released and the men in jail released."

- February 17, 1987, The Daily Intelligencer: "Five mothers interviewed in quest for found children." Amazingly, the mothers, who actually asked for the release of the men who so extremely neglected their children, were ultimately given back custody over their children. All of a sudden there was no evidence anymore of sexual abuse or pictures showing children performing blood rituals. The two arrested men were only charged with "misdemeanor child abuse" for which they pleaded not guilty, while the press forgot to mention that the initial investigation had shown that the parents had voluntarily given up their children. Finally, the press forgot to report the fact that the whole Finders affair had become a "CIA internal matter"

"The case is almost seven years old now, but matters surrounding a mysterious group known as the Finders keep growing curiouser and curiouser..."

"The more the police learned about the Finders, the more bizarre they seemed: There were suggestions of child abuse, Satanism, dealing in pornography and ritualistic animal slaughter. None of the allegations was ever proved, however. The child abuse charges against the two men in Tallahassee were dropped; all six of the children were eventually returned to their mothers, though in the case of two, conditions were attached by a court. In Washington, D.C., police began backing away from the Finders investigation. The group's practices, the police said, were eccentric--not illegal."

"Questions. Today, things appear to have changed yet again. The Justice Department has begun a new investigation into the Finders and into the group's activities. It is also reviewing the 1987 investigation into the group to determine whether that probe was closed improperly. Justice officials will not elaborate, except to say the investigation is "ongoing" and that it involves "unresolved matters" in relation to the Finders."

"One of the unresolved questions involves allegations that the Finders are somehow linked to the Central Intelligence Agency. Customs Service documents reveal that in 1987, when Customs agents sought to examine the evidence gathered by Washington, D.C., police, they were told that the Finders investigation "had become a CIA internal matter." The police report on the case had been classified secret. Even now, Tallahassee police complain about the handling of the Finders investigation by D.C. police. "They dropped this case," one Tallahassee investigator says, "like a hot rock." D.C. police will not comment on the matter... The only connection, according to the CIA: A firm that provided computer training to CIA officers also employed several members of the Finders."

"The many unanswered questions about the Finders case now have Democratic Rep. Charlie Rose of North Carolina, chairman of the House Administration Committee, and Florida's Rep. Tom Lewis, a Republican, more than a little exercised. "Could our own government have something to do with this Finders organization and turned their backs on these children? That's what all the evidence points to," says Lewis. "And there's a lot of evidence. I can tell you this: We've got a lot of people scrambling, and that wouldn't be happening if there was nothing here."..."

"CIA officials say they referred all matters concerning the Finders and the police investigation to the FBI's Foreign Counterintelligence Division. FBI officials will not comment. Law enforcement sources say some of the Finders are listed in the FBI's classified counterintelligence files."

"None of this fazes Pettie [the cult leader]. He says the CIA's interest in the Finders may stem from the fact that his late wife once worked for the agency and that his son worked for a CIA proprietary firm, Air America [which coincidentally did a lot of the CIA-Mafia drug importing into the US]."

- December 27, 1993, US News & World Report: 'Through a Glass, Very Darkly; Cops, spies and a very odd investigation'

"British children are among 160 young people freed in Argentine police raids on 10 houses used by a sect called The Family. Police raided luxury homes in northern Buenos Aires allegedly used to hold "satanic ceremonies'' involving sexual abuse of children..."

"Argentineans and foreigners are among adults arrested, and 16 leaders of the cult, an offshoot of the Children of God sect, have been charged with child abuse and kidnap, according to judicial authorities..."

"Most of the children, some as young as three, are from the United States, but Canadians, Chileans, Peruvians, Brazilians and Argentinians are involved. Insp Rebollo said: "Some of these children don't have documents. There are many who have fake passports. It is very difficult to identify each single child's nationality.'..."

"A judicial spokesman, Carlos Villafuente Russo, said that cult leaders faced charges of "sexual abuse, deprivation of liberty'' and allegations that children were used in "abhorrent satanistic acts''..."

"In the sect headquarters, near the town of Pilar on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, police rescued at least 40 children who had slept in bunk beds in cramped rooms. Insp Rebollo said: "These children were not like your average child. They had blank stares and acted like zombies. We found them locked up in tiny rooms."..."

"We found evidence suggesting that The Family was funded by influential businessmen worldwide and that children were kidnapped in one place and taken to another so that they would be difficult to trace ..."

"The Family has in recent years faced repeated police and legal investigations into allegations of sexual and psychological abuse of children."

- September 3, 1993, The Times: 'UK children rescued from religious cult; The Family'

"... Damning evidence was found in two large trunks in the house, 45 miles from Buenos Aires. They contained videos showing the children, some of whom had been separated from their parents at the age of 12, performing various sexual acts with adults and each other..."

"Juan Carlos Rebello, the police commissioner in charge of the operation, was taken aback by the children's condition. "They seemed like Martians, autistic,'' he said. "They were living in compartmented cells and answered questions like automatons. Whenever one of them tried to say something, another would look at him and he would fall silent, terrified."..."

"This weekend the Argentinean authorities are investigating claims that the Children of God supported themselves by prostitution sending teenagers to tour five- star hotels and the sale of the pornographic videos in the capital. Police and social workers have counted 19 nationalities among those arrested and taken into care and fear the children may have been part of a global child-sex network; some are thought to have been moved to South America after previous raids on Children of God communities in Australia and France..."

"The police finally acted after receiving complaints for at least four years. One of the most recent came from the father of the six-year-old Irish girl, who complained that his wife had kidnapped their two children and alleged that they were being sexually abused and used in pornographic videos."

- September 5, 1993, Sunday Times: 'The day the 'Martians' woke up; Children of God'

"Clifford St. Joseph, a gaunt, attentive man with thinning blond hair, is charged with murder in a case that came to light on June 15, 1985, when a passer-by discovered a body wrapped in a plastic garbage bag and blankets beneath a truck on Sixth Street south of Market."

"Investigators who opened the wrapping found that the victim was naked and virtually drained of blood. His lip had been cut with a knife, a five-pointed star had been carved into his chest and he had been sexually mutilated."

"Investigators said the wounds, along with wax drippings found in his right eye, were clear signals of death in a satanic ritual. "

"Homicide Inspector Earl Sanders said last year that St. Joseph is believed to belong to a "gay Satanic cult" that includes some men of "substantial means."... Sanders' partner, Inspector Napoleon Hendrix, said earlier this week that St. Joseph apparently was not acting alone..."

"Spela and Bork now differ on who killed the anonymous transient listed in police records as John Doe, 60."

- February 10, 1988, San Francisco Chronicle: 'Satanic Slaying Trial Begins In S.F. Court'

"My interest in fascist conspiracies, to be specific, began about 12 years ago. I was the proverbial academic nabob engaged in writing plays and short stories, also book, film and television reviews for publications in southern California. I frowned at any claims of political conspiracies. But back in Ohio I had run an alternative newspaper in a blighted urban area, where I had written hard news stories about police abuse, urban renewal and gentrification, redlining by the insurance companies and such, and craved an opportunity to cover a story with some substance as news. So I flew up to San Francisco and covered the John Doe 60 trial. This was not exactly your workaday murder case. It involved the kidnap and cannibalizing of a homeless man by a couple of SF satanists. One of them had a swastika tattoo on his face. The other, Cliff St. Joseph, was a waiter. Together, they had abducted "John Doe 60," took him to St. Joseph's apartment, strapped him down, pumped him full of narcotics and proceeded to carve on him all night long. They cut a pentagram into his chest, ate one of his testicles, and tortured him with knives until he bled to death. The body was left under a truck parked south of Market. All of this, of course, was repulsive, led me to ponder how anyone could sink so low as to commit this atrocity. I interviewed the lead witness; a 20-year-old kid named Eddy, over the course of three days. Eddy informed me that there were some 22 members of this satanic cult, including police officers and some very wealthy people living across the Bay. One of the cultists involved with St. Joseph worked for the Bechtel Corp. There were ties to SDI and the Reagan White House. How could this be? What did these killers have to do with Republican politicians? Moreover, Eddy told me that he'd been whisked off the street one day by a CIA agent, and held for three days of questioning. I returned to Los Angeles, shaped my trial notes into a story. It appeared in the LA Weekly. But I was not done with this atrocity and its attendant leads. CIA? Reagan? Star Wars? Mind Control? What the Hell was going on? I was obsessed and had to have some answers. I began buying newspapers from around the world, calling reporters and investigators, searching for relevant information and to my surprise it existed. My nagging curiosity regarding satanism led me to mind control and fascism. I had quite a catalogue of information assembled when I turned on the radio one evening and heard Mae Brussell for the first time. She was then on Michael Aquino's case, which dovetailed neatly with my own work. I phoned parents of children involved in the Presidio child molestation case that I'd interviewed a few weeks before, told them about Mae Brussell's program, and they phoned her. Mae set up an interview with them and attended the parents' meetings. I had arranged this as a way of establishing trust, but before I could lay the groundwork toward a meeting with her, she was dead. This hit me very hard. I drove to Monterey and explained my own work and interest in Mae Brussell to Al Kunzer at KAZU. Kunzer produced the radio program that aired her work. He put me on the air for four hours over a two-day period. The response was very favorable. Kunzer asked me to make it a weekly conspiracy show, so I tried to pick up where Mae had left off, as a way, I think, of keeping her alive. I refused to let a voice so important be stilled by mere human mortality, and still feel this way."

- July 31, 2000, Alex Constantine interviewed by Kris Millegan, answering the question: "What got you interested in conspiracies?"

"At the time of his death [July 1990, in a plane crash], Gary Caradori [chief investigator for the Nebraska Legislature's Franklin committee] was known to be pursuing two tracks - The Washinton, D.C. connection [the Craig Spence ring], and Satanism... The Douglas County grand jury acknowledged that the allegations in the Franklin case "necessitated our studying satanic and pedophile activity in eastern Nebraska, particularly in the Omaha metropolitan area." The testimony of two victim-witnesses who did not know each other, Loretta Smith and Paul Bonacci, placed [Larry] King in the middle of such activity. Smith's testimony apparently was so sensitive, that the Douglas County Attorney's office made an unprecedented appeal to the presiding judge of the Douglas County Circuit Court, judge James M. Murphy, to have it sealed in perpetuity... Murphy granted the request to seal Smith's grand jury testimony. Its nature, however, was clear by references to it in the jury's final report: 'In 1988 an Omaha girl, who was an inpatient at Richard Young Hospital, described a number of gruesome cult activities which she claimed to have witnessed between the approximate ages of 9 and 12... According to the girl, she became involved in a cult where older male members sexually molested her and killed infants and children to establish their dominance over other cult members.' Smith named Larry King as present at ritual sacrifices along with school superintendent Deward Finch and the person called Kings Horse, identified by videotaped witnesses as King's henchman, the other Larry..."

"According to testimony from Paul Bonacci, Larry King had been recruited to a satanic cult by December 1980 at the latest. In his written history, Bonacci described how King picked him up after school one day in December, "and took me to the Triangle which is in a wooded area in Sarpy County. I witnessed a sacrifice of a human baby boy. Everyone was chanting and it was a yearly ritual around the time of Christ's birth to pervert the blood of Christ. They used daggers and cut the boy and filled a cup with his blood and mixed urine in it and forced all of us to drink from the cup and chant 'Satan is Lord Lucifer, our King. Realm of darkness come now empower us, your slaves." Then they all began to chant some weird sounds and I got scared and was threatened I'd become the next sacrifice if I told anyone about it." Bonacci said he witnessed the participation of another Franklin-related figure: "I did see [Alan] Bear take part in satanic activity on several occasions." Bonacci spoke to Dr. Judianne Densen Gerber about his activities as a member of four different satanic cults in Nebraska, some of which had 50 to 100 members."

"A groundbreaking account of satanic activities in Nebraska came from Kathleen Sorenson, the foster mother who took in Nelly and Kimberly Patterson after they fled from the Webbs. Mrs. Sorenson decided to speak out about what she had learned from children in her care [over 30]. Together with her eldest foster daughter, a survivor of ritualistic abuse, she spoke at public forums around the state, gave radio and television interviews, and appeared on Geraldo Rivera's nationally televised special on Satanism... Sorenson was aware that it was dangerous to tell the public what she did. She appealed to friends, "Pray for me." She died in a head-on car crash in October 1989."

- Sen. John DeCamp: 'The Franklin Cover-Up,' second edition, p. 201-204, 210-211 (Feb. 2006 edition)

"Elizabeth is the reality behind newspaper headlines and warnings from child protection agencies that young children are more at risk than ever from gangs of pedophiles. A motherly woman, Elizabeth is not easily frightened. Since she first told police that her eldest son, Charlie, was involved with, and had been sexually abused by, a satanic ring, her house in Humberside has been under siege. Several times she and her husband Tom, a crane driver, have returned home to find bizarre signs smeared in excrement and blood on doors and mirrors; or bunches of keys and clumps of pubic hair half-hidden under pieces of furniture."

"But her real concern is the damage done to Charlie. Family photographs show a grinning six-year-old with blond hair and blue eyes turning into a pale, anxious-looking, pathetically thin adolescent..."

"It took a telephone call from the mother of his best friend, Kevin, to alert her to the real cause. Kevin had a running-away bag hidden in his bedroom. As well as a change of clothes, there was a piece of paper inside with his name and age (11), a physical description and the words "Scorpio 444."

"Elizabeth searched Charlie's room and found a similar bag. Her alarm intensified when she learned that Charlie had been trying to have sex with his five-year-old brother and seemed to regard this as normal behavior. Finally the boy broke down and began to talk."

"At the age of eight, Kevin's father had introduced him to a group of men who performed rituals involving sexual and sadistic acts. He talked about watching pornographic videos and being made to take part in them. He said he had been drugged and that, on occasions, animals were sacrificed he had been warned that a similar fate awaited him if he ever told anyone what was happening. Charlie named 20 other children who were sometimes present. He also named some of the adults, giving a list which included a teacher from his own school. By the time Charlie revealed this to his mother he was 11 years old and deeply involved so much so that he had become a recruiter, bringing in other children in exchange for money."

"Charlie was examined by a police surgeon, who said the boy had been sexually abused. Other children questioned showed similar symptoms. Eventually three local men were arrested. One, a 17-year-old, admitted acts of sexual abuse and indecency and was given two years' probation. The other two were remanded but then released for lack of evidence. Charlie's allegations of satanism were disbelieved, according to Elizabeth, or ignored."

"Charlie is not the first such child to be disbelieved. In cases of ritualistic abuse, the trustworthiness of victims' evidence is confused by the fact that they may have been drugged and shown videos. Experts have to sort out what actually happened from what the child was led to believe had happened..."

"Charlie is now a psychologically disturbed adolescent with a grossly distorted understanding of sexuality, and has been made a ward of court."

"On his weekend visits home from a residential school, he appears less traumatized than before, although he curls up in a fetal position when the past is mentioned. He is also convinced that the occultists are still keeping an eye on him and he has moments of terror when he thinks they may try to grab him in the street..."

"The audacity of child abusers has taken a new turn only recently. Police in South Yorkshire have set up a special squad to track down a gang, including at least two women, that had been impersonating child care officials in an attempt to abduct children."

- April 1, 1990, Sunday Times: 'Satanic ring forces families to suffer from a hell on earth; Sexual abuse'

"A further insight into the extent of child abuse and exploitation published on the internet was revealed yesterday when British detectives said they were trying to close a website showing pictures of a man eating a dismembered baby. Scotland Yard is liaising with the FBI in the US to close the website, based in California, which has been linked with the ritual abuse of children. Last night the website was still accessible... A second website showing similar scenes of sadistic and ritualistic abuse has been successfully shut..."

"The discovery of the site comes just a week after seven British men were jailed for their involvement in the Wonderland pedophile ring..." "...The existence of the websites was revealed by two patients at the Clinic for Dissociative Studies based in London's Harley Street and run by Valerie Sinason, a psychotherapist who specializes in the treatment of adult survivors of child abuse. Dr Sinason has attracted controversy in the past over her claims that some children are abused in Satanic rituals involving ceremonies and animal or human sacrifice. She submitted a report on her claims, based on the treatment of 51 patients, to the health department last July, which funded her research...The Metropolitan Police have provided an officer to work with Dr Sinason's clinic for half a day a month to investigate claims of abuse made by patients." "Dr Sinason said: "I heard accounts of the websites from two different survivors of abuse who didn't know each other. It is a further sign that if you want to do anything bizarre you will get away with it because no one will believe it or speak about it."

- February 21, 2001, The Independent: British police discover more child abuse horror on internet. This is just one report of many, many dozen UK reports about internet related sadomasochist child abuse or possibly (Satanic) ritual abuse. Unfortunately, newspapers have the tendency to only report the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

"In 1998, an 11-year-old boy, Rui Pedro Mendonca, vanished while walking home from school in Lousada, a town in northern Portugal. Three years later, horrific images of Rui Pedro being sexually abused were uncovered during an international police operation that cracked a global paedophile network. More than 200 paedophiles in 13 countries had exchanged more than 750,000 images of children through a private internet club called Wonderland. Analysis showed that 1,236 children had been subjected to abuse that officers described as "unimaginable". Some were abused live, to order, online. Officers said that they had wept as they catalogued the pictures and that they had been haunted by them for years. The Portuguese boy's mother, Filomena Teixera, flew to Switzerland to view the pictures and was apparently able to identify her son. But he was never found. Investigators fear that he may have been killed to cover up the abuse. "

- May 10, 2007, The Times: 'Madeleine 'abducted to order by an international child sex gang'. New members of the Wonderland club had to bring with them 10,000 new images of child abuse. There are numerous other reports in the British media about thousands upon thousands of extreme child abuse pictures being confiscated at homes of pedophiles. However, there never seems to be any follow up on all the children who have been identified on these pictures, just as some of the perpetrators. After an initial press report everything just seems to disappear in a black hole.

"Six persons were arrested in Rome on Wednesday accused of sexually abusing 15 children from the age of three to the age of six at the nursery school "Olga Rovere" of Rignano Flaminio, in the vicinities of Rome... All six were arrested and accused of a number of offences which included the abduction of minors, sexual violence within a group, sexual violence on minors under the age of 10 and obscene actions in public places. Two teachers, both grandmothers, were reported to have been in service at the school for decades and one was close to retirement... Police said the children were taken to an apartment near the school owned by one of the teachers where they were allegedly made to perform sexual acts with the Sri Lankan suspect, while the cameraman filmed [who worked at the RAI television station] the ordeal. Children who protested or resisted were given sleeping pills, tranquilisers or other types of drugs... Some victims spoke of esoteric and satanic rituals, where adults forced them to drink human blood, exited from wounds that the same persons caused. The pupils described the intimate parts of the body of the arrested persons and mentioned also piercing and tattoos, which a child at such a tender age wouldn’t know, if he or she has not seen them before. The little victims described the dreadful scenes saying: "In the villa where they took us, a man cut his arm and coerced us to drink his own blood which he poured in a glass, with other substances. Then they made us do a series of strange games, sort of performances with masked adults and massages to female teachers with oil". The parents were reportedly alarmed by signs of bruising and red swelling around their children's genital areas, as well as by the dazed and confused state in which some of them returned home from school... "It’s a nightmare" Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said, remarking the umpteenth paedophilia case in Rignano Flaminio."

- April 26, 2007, The Malta Star: 'Italy rocked by satanic, drug-induced sexual abuse in kindergarten; Children say they were forced in satanic sexual abuse and forced to drink blood in rituals'

"The Vatican has sought the intervention of the U.S. State Department to declare Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger immune from a sexual abuse lawsuit filed here, according to court documents. A church official contacted the State Department May 20, asking it to notify a Houston federal court of the pope's immunity as the head of a foreign state, according to the defense motion. Vatican attorneys requested a delay on the matter Thursday. A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, which also was named as a defendant in the suit, could not be reached for comment Friday. The lawsuit filed by plaintiffs identified as John Does I, II and III accuses the pope, then acting as a cardinal, of conspiring to cover up the alleged abuse about a decade ago. The suit names a former seminary student as the alleged abuser."

- May 28, 2005, Houston Chronicle: 'Pope wants exemption from U.S. criminal law'

"Pope Benedict XVI [Ratzinger] faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret. The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001. It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week. Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a 'clear obstruction of justice'. The letter, 'concerning very grave sins', was sent from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that once presided over the Inquisition and was overseen by Ratzinger... The letter states that the church's jurisdiction 'begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age' and lasts for 10 years. It orders that 'preliminary investigations' into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger's office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the 'functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests'. 'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication... The Ratzinger letter was co-signed by Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone who gave an interview two years ago in which he hinted at the church's opposition to allowing outside agencies to investigate abuse claims. 'In my opinion, the demand that a bishop be obligated to contact the police in order to denounce a priest who has admitted the offense of paedophilia is unfounded,' Bertone said. Shea criticized the order that abuse allegations should be investigated only in secret tribunals. 'They are imposing procedures and secrecy on these cases. If law enforcement agencies find out about the case, they can deal with it. But you can't investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10 the priest will get away with it,' [Daniel] Shea [lawyer for the two alleged victims who discovered the letter] added. A spokeswoman in the Vatican press office declined to comment when told about the contents of the letter. 'This is not a public document, so we would not talk about it,' she said."

- April 24, 2005, The Observer: 'Pope 'obstructed' sex abuse inquiry; Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered bishops to keep allegations secret'

"I will tell you that the secrecy, the obstruction that I saw during my investigation was unparalleled in my entire career as a D.A. here in Phoenix, Arizona. It was so difficult to obtain any information from the Church at all. In fact, we knew of certain meetings that had taken place, and yet no documentation was ever produced to be able to show that that meeting had even occurred. You know, when we started looking at it, it was really interesting. We came across, in the Canons for the Church, that there are supposed to be secret archives to where this type of material is to be provided, and not given to civil authorities, no matter what the circumstances. We had information that there was an instruction from the Nuncio, who is an ambassador status, to shift all of this incriminating type of information to him, because under the law we could not subpoena that material, because he would have protected status as an ambassador of the Vatican. I think that that is really what the story is: the Church's failure to acknowledge such a serious problem, but more than that, it's not a passiveness, it was an openly obstructive way of not allowing civil authorities to try to stop the abuse within the Church. They fought us every step of the way."

"I knew that these priests owed a vow of obedience to Rome, to the Vatican. So I decided to write Rome and ask them to, now that formal charges have been brought, to instruct them [the abusing priests] to follow their orders and to come back and surrender themselves, so that the court system could take the case as we wanted it to. And I got to tell you, I was very surprised. I had written to Cardinal Sodano, who is the secretary of State, and I'd basically asked him could he ensure these priests to come back. They just basically returned them [the letters] and said, 'The item has been returned, because the [secretary of State] has refused to accept the correspondence. "

- September 2006, BBC's Panorama TV show: 'Sex Crimes and the Vatican', Maricopa County (Phoenix) district attorney Richard M. Romley, who convicted eight local pedophile priests and forced a written confession from the local bishop admitting that he had knowingly hid child sexual abuse from the police.

"Crimen Solicitationis is indicative of a worldwide policy of absolute secrecy and control of all cases of sexual abuse by the clergy. But what you really have here is an explicit written policy to cover-up cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy, to punish those who call attention to these crimes by churchmen; you've got a written policy that the Vatican will control these situations, and you also have, I think, clear written evidence of the fact that all they're concerned about is containing and controlling the problem. Nowhere in these documents does it say anything about helping the victims. The only thing it says is that it can impose fear in the victims and punish the victims for discussing and disclosing what has happened to them..."

"There's no policy to help the victims. There's absolutely no policy to help those who are trying to help the victims, and there's an unwritten policy to lie about the existence of the problem, and as far as the perpetrators, the priests when they are discovered, the systematic response has been not to investigate and prosecute, but to move them from one place to another in a secret way and not reveal why they're being moved. So there's total disregard for the victims, total disregard for the fact that you are going to have a whole new crop of victims in the next place. This is not just in the United States where this is happening. This is all over the world. You see the same pattern and practice no matter what country you go to..."

"It's all controlled by the Vatican and at the top of the Vatican is the pope. So Joseph Ratzinger was at the middle of this for most of the years that Crimen was enforced and created a successor to Crimen [that every evidence of child abuse cases had to be transported to Rome exclusively], and now he is the pope. This all says that the policy and the systematic approach has not changed..."

"Cardinal Ratzinger, now as Pope, could tomorrow get up and say: 'Here's the policy: full disclosure to the civil authorities, absolute isolation and dismissal of any accused and proven and convicted clerics, complete openness and transparency, complete openness of all financial situations, stop all barriers to the legal process and completely co-operate with the civil authorities everywhere.' He could do that."

- September 2006, BBC's Panorama TV show: 'Sex Crimes and the Vatican', interview with father Tom Doyle, a Canon lawyer and former Vatican diplomat, who was sacked after criticizing the Church's policies pertaining to child sexual abuse.

"This boy was abused [by a pedophile priest who had been moved from parish to parish for years after allegations of sexual abuse] in 2002. Just think about that, 2002. At exactly the same time that the scandals are kicking of in Boston, in the United States and in Ireland; at exactly the same time the bishops and the Vatican are giving us excuses that for why it happened and for what they're gonna do to put it right. At exactly that time this boy is being raped here in Brazil. So now this boy talks about wanting to die, he doesn't want to stay alive anymore; he can't handle it, he's been bullied at school. They tell him he's the priests' little girl. And the church has done nothing. No therapy, no support, no connection, no outreach, nothing. I'm fed up with saying it's not okay. It's not okay."

- September 2006, BBC's Panorama TV show: 'Sex Crimes and the Vatican', the host visiting the scene of a case in Brazil. The grandmother of the boy in question was pressured by the Vatican and the (extremely Catholic) community to drop the allegations over her five year old grandson.

Beyond the Dutroux Affair Additional Material

The reality of protected child abuse and snuff networks

• the victim-witnesses
• the investigators
• the accused
• the apparently assassinated
• X-Dossier Summary

Note: You are encouraged to download the above mentioned additional Study Materialfor your personal research. Please respect the Copyright Ownership of this Material, in case of further Publications.

Warning: The information in this article is not suited for anyone below the age of 18, as it involves extreme sexual violence against children. A certain amount of normally-illegal visual evidence (it is censored) has been included.

Belgium's biggest secret. "What you have to understand, John, is that sometimes there are forces and events too big, too powerful, with so much at stake for other people or institutions, that you cannot do anything about them, no matter how evil or wrong they are and no matter how dedicated or sincere you are or how much evidence you have. This is simply one of the hard facts of life you have to face." - Former CIA director and Cercle member William Colby giving advice to his friend senator John DeCamp, urging him to quit his investigations into the Franklin child abuse affair and to write a book about his experiences (The Franklin Coverup, 2nd edition, foreword). "From East Belfast's Kincora Boys' Home, via Leicestershire, Staffordshire and London, to the children's homes of Clwyd, we have witnessed 25 years of cover-up. Cover-up, not to protect the innocent but to protect the regularly named elements of the British establishment who surface whenever widespread evidence of child abuse is exposed. From the public schools right through to the Catholic and Anglican churches, child abuse has been allowed a special place of sanctuary... Social workers, police, security services, local and national political figures remain the common factors in the fall-out from the [child abuse] inquiries... In case after case the cycle is described - a child is 'taken into care', then abused in a home, handed on to an outside pedophile ring and out on to the rent-boy/prostitution circuit beyond, if they live that long... Journalists find themselves battling first with authority, then with the libel laws, to publish the truth about a vast web of abuse." - June 6, 1996, The Guardian, 'True scandal of the child abusers'. These lines were written by the author of the article and are not quotes. "I look at him [inspector De Baets], and I really want to believe him, but somewhere, I know that I will never make it. The people I have known are too powerful, too influential, too untouchable. I realize that; the investigators not yet." - Victim-witness Regina Louf (X1) from Belgium describes her thoughts when she first began to testify in secret in September 1996 (1998, 'Zwijgen is voor Daders,' p. 203).

Table of Contents

Beyond Dutroux. Chapter I

• Part 1 Foreword
• Part 2 Where things began: Dutroux's reign of terror
• Part 3 Failure to catch Dutroux
• Part 4 Nihoul
• Part 5 Victim-witnesses come forward
• Part 6 Questioning the alters
• Part 7 A sniff of extreme abuse
• Part 8 Girls X1 had witnessed being murdered
• Part 9 Who backed up the claims of X1

"Imagine, everywhere you hear that story about a blackmail dossier in which organizations of the extreme right are in the possession of pictures and videos on which a number of prominent people in and around Brussels have sex with young girls; minors it is said. The existence of this dossier has always been vehemently denied. Until it was proven that testimonies and videos of this affair indeed were in the possession of the police services. An officer of the judicial police (Marnette, H.G.) denied the existence of these videos, while afterwards this person's superior admitted that they did exist, that they were kept with the judicial police in Brussels, but that they were completely worthless. Strange, because this stuff needs to be deposited with the registrar and not be kept in the possession of some police service. Subsequently, examining magistrate Jean-Marie Schlicker confirms that this dossier does indeed exist, but that he wishes not to give any testimonies about it. The at first non-existing dossier turns out to exist. The videos without substance then turn out to be interesting enough after all to be handed over to the examining magistrate tasked with the investigation into the Gang of Nijvel. But this person subsequently is afraid to testify about that! What do you think that has been going on here?" -September 1989, Congressman Hugo Coveliers, secretary of the special investigating committee tasked with evaluating the way gangsterism and terrorism is combated in Belgium (1988-1990), to Humo magazine (1990, Hugo Gijsels, 'De Bende & Co', p. 133-134). Coveliers became a senator in 1995.

"When I saw in how much trouble he got [sergeant Michel Clippe, who had convinced her to testify] and how my own dossier evolved, I decided to quit. In any case, even back then you could already see how the people surrounding De Baets were collectively being stonewalled. They didn't stand a chance." - Victim-witness X2, a police officer. Because of her job she recognized many judges and attorneys among her former abusers. Certain names and details were also given by X1 and other witnesses (1999, 'De X-dossiers', p. 321).

"Only very few reporters are still listening to me, listen to my cry for help. They are not allowed to publish or broadcast. They all tell me that they are stonewalled by their bosses... The aggression of some of the magazines, newspapers and tv programs is frightening. This is not normal anymore, this is a war in which the victims have become disposable waste." - Victim-witness Regina Louf (X1) about the media's reaction to the initially open-minded reports about the X1 case by De Morgen and Panorama in January 1998 (1998, 'Zwijgen is voor Daders,' p. 257).

Foreword

A number of Dutch and French language books have appeared on the Dutroux affair since 1996, with one standing out above the rest. This is the generally hard-to-get 1999 book 'The X-Dossiers', written by respected investigative journalists Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck. Page after page they explain how the most important aspects of the whole Dutroux investigation, in which Dutroux ultimately became a minor detail, were manipulated and finally discarded. The book presented the most powerful case possible for a massive cover up. However, there was one thing the authors couldn't do and that was to publish the names of those who had been accused by a whole range of witnesses. The reason is obvious: if the authors would have published these names they would have been paying damages for the rest of their lives.

lot of information in this article can be found in the book 'The X-Dossiers', with the primary difference being that all the names of the alleged abusers have been included. This has become possible because the Dutroux dossier, including the testimonies of the X-witnesses, were leaked to a number of reporters in the late 1990s. Both the final Dutroux dossier, which has largely been sanitized from any important information, and a summary of official reports from August 1996 to May-June 1997 have been used by this author to verify the claims made in a number of books and to find out the identities of the alleged abusers. Seeing the names and reading the biographies can be quite a shock initially, but it will also clarify how a cover up of this magnitude was possible.

The power of the Dutroux affair and its X-Dossiers is that it will enable anyone to see how a state can be controlled and undermined by a cabal that is able to place its own members in crucial positions in any investigation that might lead to its own exposure. The question of why the majority of the media is so cooperative is the only aspect that cannot be fully explained in this article, although it can be shown that the media is willingly working with official investigators in manipulating and debunking all aspects of an investigation that are not appreciated by the cabal.

Some might find it unethical to publish the names of mere suspects, especially when talking about child abuse. The author fully agrees with this argument, but only under normal circumstances in which an investigation is carried out the way it should be. This has not happened in the Dutroux affair, in which the honest, competent and dedicated researchers, together with the most important witnesses, have unjustly been persecuted, harassed, tarred and feathered by the media and the judiciary, with help from some of the alleged child abusers. That's why the investigation, which has been dead and buried for many years now, should be taken public. And let's not forget that the X-Dossiers involve a whole range of witnesses whose claims overlap and in many cases involve highly specific details that have been verified by detectives. It can also be argued that the mainstream press was anything but discrete in late 1996 when they published the names of the politicians Elio Di Rupo and Jean-Pierre Grafe as alleged child abusers. The evidence these claims were based on was meager to say the least and many times less powerful than the combined testimonies of the X-witnesses. But, of course, the purpose of this event was not to inform the public; it was an effort to discredit the rumors about high level involvement in child abuse networks. It was known that sooner or later the X-witnesses would reach the news and this was one of the pre-emptive strikes against these witnesses.

Several appendixes have been attached to this article. Most of these appendixes, which include long lists of accused, victims, investigators and apparently assassinated, were more or less finished before a beginning was made with writing this article. It has actually taken about 1,5 years to fill in all the biographies and translate the necessary passages of all the Dutch and French sources used, but this was definitely worth the effort as it gave tremendous insight in what has been going on in Belgium since the late 1970s, and provided some perspective to reports that have come from the United States and elsewhere. It might be the last thing you'd expect from a country with only ten million inhabitants, but Belgium's history of internal subversion takes quite a while to get through.

Where things began: Dutroux's reign of terror

In the afternoon of August 13, 1996, progress was finally made: a number of individuals were arrested on strong suspicions that they had been responsible for a wave of kidnappings of young girls. Within days these suspicions were backed up with solid evidence, but the arrest of Dutroux and some of his associates turned out to be only the beginning of the biggest scandal in Belgian history.

The media attention had begun in June 1995 with the disappearance of two 8 year old girls, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo. Almost exactly two months later, the 17 year old An Marchal and the 19 year old Eefje Lambrecks went missing. Additional media attention was drawn to the latter case as the last thing these girls did was visit the show of Rasti Rostelli, a prominent magician, in which they had been hypnotized. Needless to say, the affair ended the career of the magician, even though he had almost immediately been cleared as a suspect. In late 1995, the BOB (Belgian FBI and branch of the gendarmerie) largely ceased to investigate the case. However, the disappearance of An and Eefje remained prominent, because a foundation named Marc & Corinne, set up several years earlier and named after two teenagers who had been brutally murdered, used its limited funds to spread posters of the girls' faces all over Belgium and the Netherlands. In the end this made no difference; the girls weren't found, nor those responsible, and in May 1996 history repeated itself. This time the 12 year old Sabine Dardenne disappeared, and again the BOB was unable to find the kidnappers or the girl. People became more worried for their children with every kidnapping. Confidence in the police and judiciary, traditionally already quite low, began sinking to new depths.

Things changed later that year. On Friday, August 9, 1996 the 14 year old Laetitia Delhez disappeared in Bertrix, a town located in the district of Neufchateau, near the border of France and Luxemburg. Michel Bourlet, prosecutor of the king in Neufchateau, was tasked with the case and appointed examining magistrate Jacques Langlois to coordinate the investigation. When Langlois left for vacation the following Monday, Bourlet replaced him with his close colleague Jean-Marc Connerotte. The latter duo had already become well known in 1994 for not being allowed to solve the murder on Andre Cools, a socialist politician.

The same monday that Connerotte took over from Langlois, BOB adjutant Jean-Pierre Peters reported a breakthrough in the investigation. Of the several dozen tips, two turned out to be very useful. Two witnesses had seen an old white van driving around Bertrix the day Laetitia disappeared. In one of these two cases a student was afraid the driver of the van was planning to steal his bike. As luck would have it, the 22-year-old had a passion for cars and reported to the police the exact type of van and a good chunk of its license plate, as the first three letters reminded him of the name of his sister. In no time Dutroux's name, a known pedophile, came out of the computer. A crisis meeting was held in Bertrix that evening and the following day Dutroux, his wife Michele Martin, and his sidekick Michel Lelievre were arrested. In the following days their testimonies led to the retrieval of two girls, Sabine and Laetitia, in Dutroux's basements. Belgium's case of the century was about to begin.

Failure to catch Dutroux

In the following months and years details came out about the failure of the police and BOB to catch Dutroux in an earlier stage. Although usually not presented in such a way, most of these rather odd failures can be ascribed to BOB officer Rene Michaux.

As head of Operation Othello, a surveillance operation against Dutroux from August 10, 1995 to January 1996, he practically knew everything there was to know about this already convicted, violent pedophile. From all sides evidence was presented to him that Dutroux not only had kidnapped Julie and Melissa, but also An and Eefje. However, Michaux ignored evidence presented by such informants as Claude Thirault, to whom Dutroux had mentioned how to kidnap young girls and how much you could get for them; Dutroux's mother, who had gathered evidence from her son's neighbors that he was likely involved in the kidnappings; and police officer Christian Dubois, who early on was on the trail of the gang of Nihoul, which would immediately have led to Dutroux.

In between all these reports, the video cameras aimed at Dutroux's Marcinelle home as part of Operation Othello failed to register Dutroux bringing in An and Eefje on August 22, nor would Michaux's team notice Eefje's failed escape attempt on August 25, in which she briefly climbed out the bathroom window to shout for help. An and Eefje were taken out of the house in September and murdered.

When finally forced to search Dutroux's Marcinelle home for reasons not related to the kidnappings, Michaux decided to ignore the voices of two young girls, seemingly not even trying to get a response from them. He also didn't think that Dutroux's odd L-shaped basement, with one wall much newer than all the others, was reason enough to tear it down, nor did he recognize the significance of such items as vaginal cream, a speculum, chains, and a videotape with the name of a program on it dealing with missing children. Two other videos which would have shown Dutroux working on his basement and him raping a 14 year old girl were returned to Dutroux's wife, apparently without having been reviewed by his team. This failure of properly searching Dutroux's home apparently led to the death of Julie and Melissa, who are believed to have died from starvation in Dutroux's basement. It also led to the kidnapping of Sabine and Laetitia after Dutroux got out of jail in March 1996.

In August 1996, after Dutroux had been arrested on suspicions that he had kidnapped Laetitia, Michaux led another three hour search in Dutroux's Marcinelle home where at that moment Sabine and Laetitia were located. Needless to say, Michaux not only failed to find the girls, which could possibly have led to the release of Dutroux, he also hadn't noticed the letters Sabine had hidden under Dutroux's carpet. Luckily, the location of the girls would be pointed out by Dutroux 48 hours later, after it had become clear to him there was no way out this time, especially not with his lackey Michel Lelievre spilling the beans. These failures of Michaux led to strong criticism from the parents of An Marchal, who went to inspect Dutroux's basement themselves. The parents of Melissa Russo filed an official complaint against him. When Bourlet criticized Michaux in 2004 over his failure to even find Sabine's Rene Michaux, one of the world's most incompetent police officers. letters, and seemingly implied this might not have been unintentional, Michaux could only react by calling Bourlet a "liar" and stating that "he sure wouldn't have found Laetitia under the carpet." These intellectual replies were soon followed by threats to sue for libel. Michaux's extreme incompetence was rewarded with a new position as a local police commissioner.

Following is a brief recap of Dutroux's life and how extraordinarily incompetent the judiciary had to be to allow him to go on kidnapping girls.

• Dutroux's had a long history of physically abusing women.

• Convicted in November 1988 for kidnapping, photographing, torturing and raping five girls between the age of 11 and 19. Also convicted for torturing an older woman by putting a razor in her vagina. He tried to force her into giving him money.

• In April 1992, PSC Minister of Justice Melchior Wathelet approved Dutroux's release from prison. Although it is normal in Belgium to be released after a third of the sentence has been served out, many in the system who worked with Dutroux did not agree with this decision. Dutroux was known to them as a manipulative psychopath without any regrets for his crimes. In fact, he never even admitted to them. Interestingly, Wathelet would be accused in the X-Dossiers of being a violent child abuser himself, together with some of his known proteges and associates.

  ¹

• After his release, Dutroux received an unusually large amount of sleeping pills and sedatives from his doctor, which he would later use to quiet the girls he abducted

  ²

• In his house in Marcinelle, near Charleroi, where he lived most of the time, Dutroux began constructing a concealed dungeon in the basement. In early 1993, the unemployed, small-time criminal Claude Thirault, who rented one of Dutroux's homes, was hired by Dutroux as a handyman to install water drains beneath one of his newly-bought houses. Although Thirault thought this was a bit unusual, he didn't mind doing it. But a few days into the job two girls walked past the house they were working on, prompting Dutroux to remark to Thirault: "If you want to kidnap them, you'll make 150,000 franks [about 4000 euro]... Grab them from behind, put a sedative drug under their nose, pull them into the car, and lock the doors."

  ³

  Dutroux went on to explain how he had plans to abduct girls, lock them up in his basement and transport them abroad

  ⁴

  Thirault, an occasional police informant, went to the police, and as a result Dutroux's houses were searched some months later, in December, the official reason being that he was suspected of a car theft. The police officers noticed Dutroux's modified basement, but did not find any girls. His house was searched again in June 1994 and it appeared to the officers that he had stopped working on the basement.

• In June 1995, Dutroux was sued for having illegally widened an opening to his basement in an effort to put in a venting tube.

  ⁵

• Thirault went back to the police after Julie and Melissa had disappeared to remind them of Dutroux's ideas about kidnapping girls and the modifications to his basement. The police got back to Thirault a few days later and asked him if he had some more solid evidence, apparently needed if the house of this known pedophile was to be searched.

  ⁶

• On June 24, 1995, examining magistrate Martine Doutrewe became head of the 'Julie and Melissa cell', tasked with finding the missing girls. Unfortunately for the girls, Doutrewe left for vacation in Italy within days of being assigned to this post and would not return until early August 9 (38 years old at the time; suffered from cancer and had already planned to recover from an operation; died in 1999; in 1995, her husband was under investigating for having embezzled millions of euros). No other permanent investigating judge was appointed in her place which significantly impacted the efficiency of the entire investigation

  ⁷

  Doutrewe would never seriously get involved with the BOB operation that was to monitor Dutroux's daily activities. The magistrate also never tried to arrange a phone tap, a search warrant or approval for a financial investigation

  ⁸

• On August 10, 1995, a group of BOB officers began monitoring Dutroux's movements under the code name Operation Othello. A time lapse video camera was used less than 2% of the total observation period

  ⁹

  and operations were suspended at 10 o'clock each evening

  ¹⁰

  The operation was so ineffective that on August 22, Dutroux was able to kidnap An and Eefje and lock them up in his house -completely unnoticed. On August 25, Eefje managed to grab her clothes, crawl out of the bathroom window and shout for help. Although she was pulled back in by Dutroux within seconds, the observers never noticed anything. A few weeks later the girls were taken out of the house -again unnoticed- and murdered. Dutroux was also able to kidnap three teenagers he suspected of having double-crossed him and lock them up in his house without any cameras or observers noticing anything. In addition, Dutroux had murdered Bernhard Weinstein during the period that he was under observation.

• On September 4, 1995, Dutroux's mother, who advised against the 1992 release of her son, anonymously informed Rene Michaux, investigative head of Operation Othello, that the neighbors of Dutroux were very suspicious about his activities. Windows were blackened out, Dutroux was always making noise in the basement, the garden was filled with used car tires, and two girls "of 16 or 18 years old" had recently been seen in his garden. These girls had never been observed during daylight. This information somehow didn't make it to the investigating team that was working on the case of An and Eefje, who were 17 and 19 years old.

  ¹¹

• On December 6, 1995, Dutroux was arrested for having been involved in stealing a truck and kidnapping and torturing three teenagers he suspected of having restolen the vehicle (one of the teenagers had escaped and informed the police). Under the leadership of gendarme officer Rene Michaux, Dutroux's homes were searched on December 13 and again on December 19. One or more children were heard crying by Michaux and the locksmith (this person did not know anything about Dutroux being a suspect in the kidnapping of girls) accompanying him. They went to look in the basement, which clearly had a whole section which had recently been modified

  ¹²

  , but couldn't find anything, leading Michaux to conclude that the voices must have come from outside

  ¹³

  The parents of Julie Lejeune, one of the children that was locked up there at the time, would later prove that normal communication was possible with someone locked up in one of the cells

  ¹⁴

  Additionally, during the December 13 search of Dutroux's basement, Michaux found vaginal cream, chloroform, a speculum (medical instrument used to dilate bodily orifices) and chains, which to him were no cause for alarm. Videos were confiscated, which showed Dutroux working on his basement and raping a number of (unknown) girls. On one of the tapes the text "Perdu de Vue, Marc" was written, a reference to the tv program 'Lost From Sight' which dealt with missing children, and on which Julie and Melissa had also featured. Michaux and team never watched the tapes and gave them back to Dutroux's wife, Michele Martin

  ¹⁵

• In the afternoon of December 13, after the disastrous search in Dutroux's Marcinelle home, Michaux met with police officer Christian Dubois. Both had been working on a recent phenomenon involving occupants of white Mercedesses following and photographing schoolgirls. On this occasion, Dubois informed Michaux that he had an informant who had stated that the white Mercedesses belonged to a pedophile network centered around a company called Achats Services Commerces (ASCO; not to be confused with X1's abuse and snuff factory) located in the Brussels' suburbs. According to the informant, the occupants of the white Mercedesses were putting together catalogs of pictures of children. Their clients could pick one of these kids, which would then be kidnapped, locked up in Belgium for a while, and then exported to eastern Europe or Thailand. The price for each child would be about 7500 euros. During their conversation Michaux told Dubois about Dutroux. Dubois recalled: "I remember that Michaux told me that Dutroux went to countries in eastern Europe... The sums he mentioned for the kidnappings were similar to those given to me by my informant... Even today this still keeps me awake at night. I feel responsible. Afterwards, in 1996, I looked into Dutroux... You just felt it. This was the man we were looking for!" Michaux undertook no action and the Verwilghen Commission would later scratch its head why. ASCO turned out to be a highly interesting company. It was incorporated on July 2, 1991, primarily by Jean-Louis Delamotte, a friend and regular business partner of Michel Nihoul. Nihoul, Bernard Weinstein, Michel Lelievre and Michele Martin (not Dutroux) had all been spotted on a regular basis in the immediate surroundings of the company. People in the neighborhood had also noted that Nihoul was often surrounded by young negro girls and had the impression that these girls were on transit. Five mattresses and some baby milk were found inside the company's headquarters after it had gone bankrupt in 1994. Delamotte's company Soparauto, registered at the same address, owned 5 white mercedesses, all with French license plates, as had been reported.

  ¹⁶

  Delamotte would later also be pointed out as the thug who intimidated one of the X-witnesses

  ¹⁷

  , including the person who had initially looked after this witness.
• On March 20, 1996, Dutroux was released unusually early on "humanitarian reasons"; his wife was about to have a baby. Operation Othello, the program that was monitoring Dutroux's movements, had been shut down in January, because Dutroux was in jail. The operation was not revived after his release.
• In August 1996, Dutroux was finally caught by Michel Bourlet and Jean-Marc Connerotte. Sabine, one of two girls locked in the basement, had hidden letters under Dutroux's carpet. Michaux failed to find them, for which he would be criticized by Michel Bourlet in 2004

  ¹⁸

• Even though more than 10 years have passed since Dutroux was arrested on suspicions of having kidnapped Laetitia, largely because of Michaux it is still somewhat of a mystery how many videos were confiscated in late 1995 and in August 1996

  ¹⁹

  Initial reports after Dutroux's arrest stated that the justice department was in the possession of more than 300 videos

  ²⁰

  ; within several weeks this number was upped to 5,000 videos. Reports that Dutroux's accomplices, including a number of high level officials, could be seen on these tapes also began to appear

  ²¹

  In the end, this seems to have been a huge exaggeration

  ²²

  , even though the exact amount of videos remains a bit of a mystery

  ²³

  Most estimates today are below 100, and only a portion of these videos appear to have shown Dutroux abusing young girls.

Nihoul

One of the most important reasons for speculation about a network has been Michel Nihoul. This person had been arrested on August 16 after the investigators of Bourlet and Connerotte found out that on August 10, one day after Lelievre and Dutroux had kidnapped Laetitia, Nihoul had supplied Lelievre, free of charge, with 1,000 XTC pills. The original investigators immediately suspected that these pills served as a payment for the kidnapping of Laetitia, suspicions which were only fueled when Nihoul was unable to provide an alibi for August 8

²⁴

the day when at least 8 witnesses claim to have seen Nihoul in Bertrix at and around the location where Laetitia would be kidnapped the next day. Additionally, some of these witnesses claimed to have seen Nihoul in the presence of Dutroux (or his van), who was carrying out an initial surveillance that day

²⁵

Both Dutroux's wife Michele Martin and Michel Lelievre specified that Dutroux, at least in some cases, kidnapped girls according to specific wishes of clients. Martin stated that one of these clients was Michel Nihoul.

Michele Martin, Dutroux's wife: "I have heard Marc personally telling Lelievre that he should bring a girl for Michel Nihoul. If I haven't mentioned that before, that is because I'm afraid of that gang, I mean Nihoul, Marc Dutroux and others in Brussels. I mean well-placed individuals who Nihoul knew. The connections of Nihoul made me fear for my children and myself... I was afraid, because Jean-Michel Nihoul, Marc Dutroux and Michel Lelievre were part of a gang that was involved in all kinds of business, like drugs, pills, girls and forged papers [PEHI note: for which Nihoul would later indeed be convicted, just as human trafficking]. I have to say that at the time of the kidnapping of Sabine and Laetitia, Michel Nihoul, as I already stated, often called to Sars, to my home. He was looking for Marc Dutroux. He didn't call for me. When Nihoul tried to reach Marc he always remained vague. I never knew why he called so often to Marc Dutroux. Over time I became more and more convinced that Marc Dutroux and Jean-Michel Nihoul did things that couldn't stand the light of day and which I was not supposed to know about."

²⁶

"By the way, Marc told me that he went more and more to Brussels and met an increasing number of people in light of his activities with Michel Nihoul... Nihoul always gave me the impression that he had many connections that he could count on. Marc Dutroux told me that Nihoul had taken care of many of Lelievre's problems: he had prevented that he was arrested, he had worked out his fines and solved his money problems. Marc had accurately sensed that he would benefit from continuing to see Nihoul, because of his connections and those of his wife, the lawyer. The more they saw each other, the more they opened up of course. I think that at a certain moment a mutual trust was built. I see evidence of that in a conversation between Lelievre and Marc that I coincidentally heard and in which Dutroux said that they had to bring back a girl for Nihoul. I think that Jean-Michel had influence on Marc Dutroux. Marc often told me that he was impressed by the connections Nihoul had."

²⁷

Michel Lelievre: "Marc always told me that he kidnapped girls for people who had placed an order with him. When he came out of prison in March 1996, I asked him who did the orders when he was in jail. He answered me that somebody else did that and that he certainly wasn't the only one. When we went to pick up a girl, Marc wanted that she corresponded with the order, Michel Nihoul, Dutroux's apparent link to the upper echelons of the network. Found guilty by the jury, before it was overruled by the presiding judges

³¹

Nihoul is the ultimate example of an unscrupulous villain, but for some reason he has enjoyed the protection of many magistrates and media outlets. small hips. He gave me a description of the girl that we were looking for. [One day] I asked him why they [An and Eefje] were still with him even though he claimed he had an order. He told me that the people who had placed the order had come, but that they weren't interested in them... Dutroux explained me that he conditioned the girls to be obedient and submissive when they arrived at customers..."

²⁸

"I would like to reveal other things about Jean-Michel Nihoul, but I don't want that these testimonies are taken up in the dossier. As I said, I fear for my life and those around me. I remind you that Nihoul told me the following: 'if you cross me, I will destroy you'. With those words he made it known to me that he would kill me or have me killed."

²⁹

Although convicted for financial fraud, drug- and human trafficking due to an overwhelming amount of evidence

³⁰

Nihoul ultimately was acquitted from charges that he was involved in the kidnapping and murder of any of Dutroux's girls. However, to anyone who has taken an in depth look into the case, it's clear that a whole lot of leads had to be ignored and discarded before this conclusion could be reached

³²

raising two important questions: How, and why?

Victim-witnesses come forward

Probably the most important (and underreported) thing that happened in the aftermath of the Dutroux affair was that a number of victims from pedophile networks felt that this was their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to testify about what they had experienced. Until Connerotte and Bourlet were able to arrest Dutroux and Nihoul, and retrieve two missing girls, these victim-witnesses did not know who in the Justice Department they could trust. Many of these victims already had tried to speak to the authorities, but investigations never got off the ground. The victims knew the reason: among their abusers were the most powerful men in Belgium: police commissioners, gendarme officers, judges, bankers, businessmen, politicians and high nobility figures.

Not all, but most of these victims who came to Neufchateau to testify about "the network" were designated with an X, followed by a number. Although some of these women later on turned out to have known each other from the network, at the time they decided to testify to Neufchateau none of them had been in contact with each other for many years. Their interviews were conducted separately and they did not have access to each other's testimonies. A short introduction to each victim follows

³³

X1 Born in 1969. Abused and neglected by her parents. When 2 years old, sent to her grandmother in Knokke, who owned a hotel-villa that was used as a brothel for high-level pedophiles and sadists. Pedophile videos were also shot here. Introduced to her pimp, Tony Vandenbogaert, at age 4 who began to take her to other locations for sexual abuse and torture. Sent back to her parents in Gent in June 1979 for a variety of reasons. Extremely neglected by her parents for several months until her old pimp showed up again. For years she was taken to abuse- and torture parties. Managed to hook up with a boy she fell in love with, married, and immediately moved out in 1988, which appears to have saved her from ending up in a snuff movie. Never managed to break away completely from the network. Sometimes when her husband left the house for a few days to work as a truck driver, her pimp and some of his associates would show up and take her with them to locations where children were abused. On these occasions she was raped herself or had to participate in abuse against others. X1 was diagnosed with MPD/DID. Nathalie C. (X7) Born in 1969. Contacted by the BOB after testimonies from X1. First denied knowing anything about X1. It soon turned out that she was heavily traumatized and probably had MPD/DID. After having been brought in for an interview she began to speak about her father, how he sexually abused her, and how he liked to mutilate her sister with cigarettes. She then confirmed that she had been X1's best friend, that she knew about the sexual relationship with Tony and that she had been forbidden to go to the first floor of the hotel-villa of X1's grandmother. The interviews were cancelled by later investigators. X4 identified X7 as a girl who was forced to play in pedophile movies. Chantal S. Born in 1968. Another woman contacted by the BOB after testimonies from X1. Immediately knew what it was about. Sexually abused by her parents. Her grandmother was into Satanism. Moved with her parents to Knokke at age 6 and was sometimes brought to the hotel-villa of X1's grandmother. Here she also was sexually abused, although she didn't have to endure the extreme torture sessions that X1 regularly underwent. Confirmed that one of the abusers indeed was nicknamed "Monsieur". Had seen X1 being threatened with a revolver by her grandmother. Like X7, she was forbidden to go to the first floor. Chantal's testimonies resulted in a verbal fight between her husband and parents, in which her father admitted to have brought her to X1's grandmother. Tried to commit suicide and was taken up again in a mental institution. X4 identified Chantal also as a girl who was forced to play in pedophile movies. X2 Police officer who worked on an aspect of the Dutroux investigation. When the X1 case was discussed during a meeting, participants noticed that she seemed very upset. After discussing her history of child abuse with one of her superior officers she decided to become a witness. X2 had ended up as a mistress to a magistrate in Brussels and later to a higher level officer and spokesperson of the Justice Department who was a member of the Rotary. These two men were part of a network in which she was abused from the mid- to late 1980s. X2 was spared from the extreme torture sessions, but heard other girls speak about child murders and was present at a hunting party on children, which is something other Xs have also spoken about. Some of the abusers and locations where this abuse was going on turned out to be the same as mentioned by X1 and other Xs. Withdrew as a witness when she saw that the investigation was being sabotaged, something which didn't surprise her. X3 X3 had been in the network a long time ago, from 1950 to 1962. From age 3 to 12, she had been severely abused and tortured at home, together with her sister. After that age, her father and his influential group of friends brought her into the network. She described the same elements as other X-witnesses, although the scale of one of the meetings she described is hard to accept without any of the other witnesses backing up the practices at this specific location (some of those involved were in fact mentioned by others). Before contacting Neufchateau, X3 had already written anonymously about her experiences with child abuse and she was well respected for her work with other child abuse victims. It took five interviews before investigators wrote anything down, and even after writing summaries of her testimony it was attempted to leave out the royal family as much as possible - an unwritten rule in Belgium, because the king, in theory, can't be prosecuted. X4 Born in 1965. Like X1, X4 had been persuaded by a friend to testify. As a young child she was loaned out by her mother to a pimp named Jacques V., who produced SM movies with children. Her story largely paralleled that of X1, although X4 experienced everything from within different sects. She recognized two childhood friends of X1 who had been abused, and named some of the same perpetrators as the other witnesses. X4's parents turned out to live next to a villa where X1 claimed a friend had been abused to such an extend that she died. Nathalie W. Born in 1965. With support from her therapist she gave her first testimony to the gendarmerie in February 1996, six months before the Dutroux affair. The officer who interviewed her refused to write down an official report. In July 1996, she found two other gendarme officers who were willing to work with her. Nathalie told how she had been raped by her father, a member of the Rotary, since the age of six. Soon thereafter brought into the network and was abused by her father's friends at parties in different villas in the region of Waterloo. When 10 years old, handed by her father to a prince and his main aide, who continued to take her to different abuse parties in Belgium. Confirmed X1's story about the Les Atrebates club, Nihoul and Tony. In turn, X1 recognized Nathalie as a girl from the network and accurately placed her at Les Atrebates. Even though Nathalie confirmed aspects of X1's story, she was easily discredited by her new interrogators, as she not only suffered from extreme psychological trauma (MPD/DID), but also from pathomimie, which is a tendency to inflict physical harm to one's own body in order to play the victim. This last psychological quirk seemed to have surfaced mainly after her original interviewers were replaced by two extremely abusive ones (like would happen with X1). She couldn't handle this pressure and quit testifying in March 1997. Nathalie was severely persecuted for having dared to step forward with her story, maybe even more than X1. VM1 A gangster who came to Neufchateau in February 1997. Told how he had been brought up in a children's home in Mont-Saint-Guibert. From age 9 to 13, he was regularly picked up from this home by a local juvenile judge who brought him to abuse parties in villas around Brussels. Said that he later worked as a child prostitute in Le Mirano, an elitist club visited by some of the same men that featured in the testimonies of other victim-witnesses above, including Nihoul. Within two days of his supposedly secret testimony, VM1 was stopped on the streets and threatened with death.

Notice how these victims ended up in the network: instead of having been grabbed from the streets, they were brought in by their own families, or, in one case, taken from a children's home.

At least in western Europe, the idea of a lonely pedophile grabbing children from the street only seems applicable in a relatively small amount of cases (especially permanent abductions). There's a significant amount of evidence that a lot of child abuse happens within networks consisting of degenerate families and their acquaintances

³⁴

which are exploited and protected (really for reasons not fully understood) by people higher up in the food chain

³⁵

Children in the network often are forced to bring in other children

³⁶

The new ones are then controlled through certain psychological routines involving threats, shame and guilt

³⁷

Although victim-witnesses often report having witnessed many murders in these networks, including children from western Europe, data about child disappearances and deaths is very uncategorized and therefore very inconsistent

³⁸

As for the whole of Belgium, estimates range from "at least" 43 disappearances between 1973 and 1996

³⁹

to as many as 1,022 in one year, with the D.A.'s office in Brussels claiming that approximately 280 children a year go missing in just Brussels alone

⁴⁰

Also, if victims from these networks or some of the above numbers are correct, the obvious conclusion is that the media is not paying attention to many, if not the majority of child disappearances and deaths, which, in case of the British media, seems to be the true

⁴¹

One interesting aspect many victim-witnesses from different countries have testified about is a very similar psychological approach used to allow the victims of even the most sadistic abuse to function (somewhat) in society, therefore not raising any really alarming questions in the immediate surroundings of the child. We are referring here to the encouraging and maintaining of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) in the victims

⁴²

MPD has these days been renamed to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). It basically is a psychological disorder in which the mind and the memory of the victim is shattered in ten, hundred, or possibly even a thousand different sub-personalities, making testifying extremely difficult and a very long term process. Several X-Dossier witnesses still heavily suffered from this disorder at the time they began to testify.

Questioning the alters

Although a one hundred percent confirmed psychological disorder, MPD/DID remains quite controversial in the public's eye (for those who even heard about it). It's true that DID is a complex disorder and sometimes hard to wrap the mind around (pardon the unintentional pun). But this is largely the result of a lack of information, and if any of the politically correct arguments are stripped away, the real underlying reasons for the controversy become quite simple.

First of all, DID is intrinsically linked to the most extreme sexual and psychological abuse against children. In 97 to 98 percent of the DID cases, victims talk about having been sexually abused since a young age

⁴³

It's not uncommon for DID patients to give details about abuse that sound so bizarre, horrifying and huge that, no matter what the evidence, will take some time and repeating for the average person to accept as even a possibility. Protected child abuse and -torture networks involving well known individuals would be a primary example of that.

The second reason is that these networks are protected by those involved, who apparently have the power to make sure that very little information on these networks appears in the public domain. Additionally, a rather small, but very influential group of "skeptics", organized around the US-based False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), have been doing a counter-attack since the early 1990s when reports of ritual abuse became a little bit too widespread

⁴⁴

This group has done everything in its power to convince the public and the psychology community that all DID is created by incompetent psychologists. Because of an incorrect way of asking questions, these psychologists would have inserted certain "false memories" in their patient's minds. Even though more than a dozen board members of the FMSF have been accused of child abuse themselves, have come out in favor of pedophilia, or have a past in mind control research for a whole range of intelligence agencies (45), virtually no mainstream media ever felt the need to consistently point that out. As might be expected, Dutch and Belgian supporters of this FMS Foundation couldn't resist an attempt to discredit X1 with textbook disinformation tactics

⁴⁶

But even though FMS Foundation supporters have tried to muddy the waters somewhat, every textbook psychology book makes a clear distinction between DID and schizophrenia. The latter is characterized by delusions, hallucinations and a lack of sense of identity. The different alters of a person suffering from DID, however, all have an identity of their own, and although memory is never 100 percent accurate and there remains the possibility of manipulation, these alters have experienced something traumatic that actually did happen to this person. A brief article on the website of Merck, a large pharmaceutical company, gives one of the best summaries of what Dissociative Identity Disorder actually is:

"Dissociative identity disorder appears to be a rather common mental disorder [other sources say that DID is quite rare]. It can be found in 3 to 4% of people hospitalized for other mental health disorders and in a sizable minority of people in drug abuse treatment facilities. However, some authorities [the FMSF] believe that many cases of this disorder reflect the influence of therapists on suggestible people..."

"Dissociative identity disorder appears to be caused by the interaction of several factors. These include overwhelming stress; an ability to separate one's memories, perceptions, or identity from conscious awareness; abnormal psychologic development, and insufficient protection and nurture during childhood... About 97 to 98% of adults with dissociative identity disorder report having been abused during childhood..."

"... some symptoms may reflect the intrusions of past experiences into the present. For example, sadness may indicate coexisting depression, or it may be that one of the personalities is reliving emotions associated with past misfortunes... People with this disorder are prone to injuring themselves. They may engage in self-mutilation. Many attempt suicide."

"In dissociative identity disorder, some of a person's personalities are aware of important personal information, whereas other personalities are unaware. Some personalities appear to know and interact with one another in an elaborate inner world. For example, personality A may be aware of personality B and know what B does, as if observing B's behavior; personality B may or may not be aware of personality A..."

"Because the personalities often interact with each other, people with dissociative personality disorder report hearing inner conversations and the voices of other personalities commenting on their behavior or addressing them [not to be confused with hallucinations]. They experience distortion of time, with time lapses and amnesia..."

"People with dissociative identity disorder may not be able to recall things they have done or account for changes in their behavior. Often they refer to themselves as "we," "he," or "she." While most people cannot recall much about the first 3 to 5 years of life, people with dissociative identity disorder may have considerable amnesia for the period between the ages of 6 and 11 as well."

⁴⁷

X1 suffered from all the symptoms described above, and more. She told how many of her alters still had the same age as when they were created, or how her handwriting differed depending on which alter was active

⁴⁸

As is obvious from her background of extreme abuse, these symptoms started at an early age. And interestingly, her pimp not only wasn't surprised when he first encountered X1's alters, he actually cultivated them.

"More than ever I discovered that I was missing time. I turned out to have gone to school, get good grades, I even turned out to know several classmates who spoke to me, but somehow this all had gone past me. It seemed as if someone else took over from me as soon as the door of my house closed behind me. It seemed as if the abused Ginie was put away until Tony again stood at my bed or at the school gate. The abused Ginie hardly was aware of school and family life, the other Ginie seemed not present during the abuse, and so lived 'normal'."

"It had always been this way. In Knokke, at grandmother's, the adults had noticed that I talked to the voices in my head, that I often rapidly changed moods, or even began to speak with another voice or accent. Even though I was only 5 or 6, I understood that something like this was weird and that it was not allowed. I learned to hide my voices, my other 'selves'. After what had happened to Clo, the voices, and the bizarre feeling that I at times was led by the inner voices (persons? -sic) got stronger. After the initiation I no longer resisted against the voices. It was blissful to disappear into nothingness, and only to become conscious again if Tony was there. The pain seemed more bearable."

"Tony was the only adult who understood that something was 'wrong' in my head. He didn't get mad about it, but cultivated it. He gave me different names: Pietemuis, Meisje, Hoer, Bo. The names slowly started to become part of me. The strange thing was that if he mentioned a name, the mood that fit that name was immediately called up. Pietemuis [Small Mouse] became the name of the little girl that he brought home after the abuse - a scared and nervous girl that he could comfort by talking to her in a caring and fatherly kind of way. Meisje [Girl] was the name of that part of me that only belonged to him. If he abused me in my bed in the early morning, for example, or if there was no one around us. Hoer [Whore], the name of that part of me that worked for him. Bo, the young woman who cared for him if he was drunk and needed to be looked after."

"'Now you just leave that to me,' he said when I asked him curiously why he gave me so many names, 'daddy Tony knows you better than you know yourself.' That was also true."

⁴⁹

Some of X1's other 100+ alters were Kenny, a young alter who had dealt with some of the worst torture; Stone, one of the toughest who answered to Tony and could control her fears; and Moon, born to deal with extreme cold

⁵⁰

Even after years of seeing a psychiatrist, X1 still suffered heavily from MPD/DID when she first contacted the Neufchateau investigating cell in September 1996. It took some time before her interviewers, Patriek De Baets and Philippe Hupez, began to understand how to work with her, but in the end, testifying turned out to be the most effective way to reintegrate X1's mind

⁵¹

This was a long and extremely challenging process though, and not only for X1. At times the long silences and panic attacks almost drove the interviewers crazy. An example of one of the interview sessions:

"... Meisje [Girl] sits on the window sill, saturated with pain and sadness. She feels the presence of the other victims so well that she can almost touch them with her thoughts. Shivering she crawls against the woodwork of the window and presses herself against it as if she wants to disappear in it... Patriek [De Baets] comes standing next to her, leaning against the window sill. 'Who are the girls you still remember, girl?' he asks, coincidentally pronouncing her name [of the active alter, "Girl"]. 'Vero, Mieke, Clo, Noelle, Chrissie...' she says fluently, because she remembered every face, every child. Patriek was perplexed. After such a difficult hearing, all of a sudden he heard his witness, in a young girl's voice, give a series of names that made him silent. 'Are they still alive?' Meisje [Girl] lifted her shoulders. 'Some are, I think. Others are not.'... 'Who died?' he asked calmly. 'Chrissie,' I whispered. Patriek asked how. 'They burned her.' 'Where?' 'In a basement,' she whispered even more quiet. And she withdrew deep within herself, fighting against the odor of the liquid that they had poured over her. And then when he wanted to ask more, she shook her head. 'I want to go home,' she begged. Away from those horrible memories. But Chrissie didn't leave her head anymore. Her screams, her begs for help... Tiu [Regina's murdered child]. Everything came together that week, as if time was something malleable, and became alive again as soon as the images were recalled. My son, whom I had cherished; Chrissie who soon thereafter was gruesomely punished; the screaming in my head. The madness I had felt in the days after. The madness that had started when they... but I refused to let the images come through..."

"Pain? Indeed. It hurt so much that I could only tell via a detour who that day were with Chrissie. It almost drove Patriek and Philippe up the wall. Before them they saw a grown, frightened woman, while they had to communicate with Kenny, the heavily traumatized alter, who had become almost autistic after the death of Tiu and Chrissie. Kenny carried that information with him, but could not speak... stubborn, frightened, evasive, he pushed the questions of the BOB officers away. Only through the support of other alters, who listened along and were located close to him, it was possible for Kenny, stammering and rambling, to tell his story."

⁵²

A sniff of extreme abuse

DID was created in X1 because of her background of extreme abuse. But what did this abuse actually involve?

First there was the psychological aspect. X1 never received any support or love from her parents, her grandmother, Tony or any of her abusers. Especially Tony and the grandmother, who acted as her pimps, indoctrinated X1 with the belief that she was a nobody, that besides Tony nobody cared about a "little whore" like her, that she was too stupid to become anything else than a prostitute, and that "love" is something you never get for free.

Furthermore, X1 was blamed for just about anything that happened to her, to other children in the network, to her pets, or even to those who abused her. For example, if X1 had given fellatio to her pimp which wasn't satisfying enough, he would beat her up, yelling at her that she was worthless and that it was her fault he was so upset. If X1's abusers found out that she had given out signals of her abuse to the outside world, another girl would be tortured in front of her eyes. During the torture the perpetrators would scream at her that this was all her fault, and would put her face in the other girl's blood. X1 then had to ask forgiveness to the other girl. Even when X1's best fried was raped and murdered in front of her eyes -probably because this girl became too old- she was the one to blame. In most cases X1 was blamed for things she had absolutely no control over. The same thing happened to many other girls in the network. For the abusers it was a way to destroy the victim's self-esteem and confidence, making them perfect sex slaves and objects for sadistic torture

⁵³

Besides the psychological indoctrination, X1 and the other victims reported to have undergone a whole range of other traumatic experiences. A session of violent anal sex at Regina Louf (X1) described how she and others were sometimes raped by German shepherds or even how snakes were inserted into the vaginas of the girls. It sounds bizarre, but take a look at the pictures above. These have been confiscated from a child abuse network and appeared in the Dutroux dossier, DVD 3, 47073774-1 to 4.pdf. There are hundreds of children on these (low quality) pictures, making you wonder where all of them are today and how they are doing (or if they're alive in the first place). Judging from these pictures (and there are many more), sex with dogs and other animals is very common in child abuse networks. age 3 certainly would fit in that category, as would being raped by a dog at age 4. But there also were the ice cold showers, the long and painful tie-downs, the many beatings, the rapes with knives and scissors and the torture with razor blades

⁵⁴

One of X1's many experiences: "Père forced me back on my knees, pushed me with my face on the cool table surface, and the other tied my left- and right wrist to the bed... I was unable to move in any direction and was forced to stay in this humiliating position... Everything is set ready, the lamps are pushed in the right position, the light intensity is measured - what is about to happen, I don't know, but the tension is building in my stomach. What's the deal with those dogs?... I feel how the claws of the rough-haired dog are pressing into my sides. I feel how he's panting in my neck, drool from his tongue is dripping on my back. I scream as I feel how he enters me, how his paws clasp me, his nails press into my skin. 'Get him off me', I scream... My cries are lost in an enthusiastic cheer when the dogs lets something wet run down my legs... It was the first photo shoot with dogs in a long line."

⁵⁵

Besides having been raped by dogs, X1 also spoke about how Bernard Weinstein, an associate of Dutroux until murdered by him in 1995, and Annie Bouty, the former girlfriend of Nihoul, sometimes walked around with a snake at abuse sessions, which they used to rape the girls with.

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Sounds hard to believe, doesn't it? However, the pictures above were confiscated from a child abuse network and appeared in the Dutroux dossier.

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Among the hundreds of photos there are quite a few of children being raped by dogs. There also are two or three photos which show young girls with a snake in their vagina. Sex with other animals is not uncommon either. Following is another example which, according to Regina, happened to her in Knokke when she was 10 years old:"When the contractions started her [X1's] grandmother made a phone call. The Lippens brothers, Vanden Boeynants and the assistant [police] commissioner of Knokke arrived. De Bonvoisin and Vander Elst arrived thereafter... Vander Elst puts a knife on her throat while Bonvoisin rapes her... She must masturbate while Vander Elst makes a number of photos. Lippens rapes her with a razor blade. When the child exited, de Bonvoisin beat her [multiple times in the face]. Directly after X1 gave birth she was raped and sodomized. Her daughter disappeared six weeks later. She only saw her [daughter] at the factory again."

⁵⁸

What's there to say about this piece of testimony? The events sound bizarre, but the names and details have been repeated by other independent witnesses. Regina also frequently spoke about the "end circuit", in which many girls tended to end up by the time they reached their 16th birthday. Growing too old, not going along with the abuse, or failing to satisfy a customer; according to Regina, this could all lead to a child prostitute's untimely death.

X1, X2, X3, X4, Nathalie W., VM1, Jacques Thoma, Pascal Willems, and others all spoke about children being murdered. These murders were often captured on video, which were subsequently shown at a number of abuse parties. Besides the already powerful statements from witnesses there's also some independent evidence that these so-called snuff films, like child abuse networks, are more than just an "urban myth", as they are usually referred to. Take the Dolo, the notorious night club that played a central role in the X-Dossier and the life of Michel Nihoul, who was one of its most prominent visitors. The Dolo was one of the locations in Belgium where important police commissioners, politicians, lawyers and directors of several well known companies interacted with gang leaders, alleged pedophiles and individuals involved in human trafficking.

⁵⁹

In 1997, Claude "Max" Vankeerberghen, the former valet of the Dolo and driver of Dolores Bara (the co-owner of the Dolo), testified that several Dolo visitors, including a person named Doudou More confiscated pictures from a child abuse network. These pictures are included here because images combined with text give a much more powerful message than words alone. Seeing pictures of the actual abuse really lets the reality and the depravity of these networks sink in (and we aren't even dealing with the worst abuse yet). The pictures are censored so it's harder to make silly claims that, for example, these few low quality photos are of any use to aspiring pedophiles. The mainstream Dutch Zembla documentary also included a few pictures of these abuse networks in their documentary, albeit uncensored (a very small child lying underneath a dog, for example). Not sure if that was such a good idea with all those moral crusaders out there. The DVDs, the relevant documents and any backups of these pictures have been deleted, shredded and thrown out way before this article was published. Of the many hundreds, all what's left are these pictures. and Nihoul, were involved in a pedophilia ring which kidnapped children

⁶⁰

The official report of Van Vankeerberghen also states:

"Van K. heard Nihoul and Doudou speak about cages for children, to make them suffer. Videos from the USA would show black children in cages in which they were tortured and burned [1992-1993 period]."

⁶¹

The generally accepted origins of the snuff movie go back to the early 1970s, the name having been derived from Charles Manson, who is said to have coined the term snuff for murder, and his "family" (a cult), who committed a number of murders which some claimed were filmed.

Some years after these facts, beginning on October 2, 1975, there was a brief string of newspaper reports that the FBI and several police departments were investigating claims of reporters and informants that a number of 8 mm films, one of them from Argentina, had been smuggled into the country showing pornographic sessions ending in real murders

⁶²

Details were provided for only one film, and they turned out to be very similar to the snuff scene added to the movie 'Snuff', brought out in early 1976

⁶³

Besides details of the scene, this movie had also been recorded in Argentina. As not a peep was heard anymore from detective Joseph Horman, who had spoken to the media in early October 1975, it is generally assumed the police and FBI were not on the trail of any real snuff movies. Even today the existence of snuff movies remains controversial because publicly-available visual evidence of these type of films is not available. Initially, the author of this article was quite intrigued by one of the pictures that appeared in the Dutroux dossier showing a girl impaled on a pole (between all the hundreds of confiscated abuse pictures). But after a bit of research this turned out to be a controversial scene from the 1981 movie Cannibal

An apparently real "snuff" movie. Found it via a regular file sharing network and turned out to be quite popular. All other available "snuff" was mainly regular porn, fake rape or indeed a few cases of real rape of under aged girls. This video is very macabre, is unedited and has awfully realistic feel and look to it, unlike the movies from the horror genre which are usually cited when the "snuff hype" is discussed (I watched them specifically for this article). Can I guarantee it's real? No. One would need to know who the victim is to start with. Who initially uploaded it? Good question. Don't know. At one point it was masked as a French-language Prison Break episode. Holocaust', one of the movies often cited by skeptics who want to prove that the sole source for rumors about snuff films are bizarre horror movies like these. Other movies cited by skeptics are 'Flowers of Flesh and Blood', 'Nightmares in a Damaged Brain' and the earlier-mentioned 'Snuff'. However, there's a big difference between these horror movies and the video of which screenshots can be seen on the left. In this low quality, unedited home video a person is torturing and raping a girl -allegedly his daughter- who has been tied to a chair. During the half hour that the torture lasts, the perpetrator pierces the victim's nipples, nails her right hand to the chair, pulls loose her fingernails, rapes her with a knife and does a number of other highly unpleasant things to this girl. Officially, it's not a snuff movie, because the victim isn't killed (at least, not that day. Another session was announced for the next day) and it isn't known if this video was sold or distributed in a network, but one can wonder why this perpetrator, like pedophiles as Jean-Paul Raemaekers and Dutroux, was filming his own abuse. For personal use? Or for the same reasons that Raemaekers and others gave, to distribute it in a network?

⁶⁴

In stark contrast to the lacking visual evidence, victim-witnesses not only have been testifying about violent abuse and -trafficking networks for a long time, they also mentioned very specific and similar details, including the torturing and killing of children, sometimes in front of cameras. These reports really got off the ground in the United States in 1987, followed a few years later by Great Britain. Since the Dutroux case exploded, we also know that similar testimonies have come from Belgium and surrounding countries. As we shall see, Russia followed in 2000.

One of the more interesting cases pertaining to snuff movies is a child abuse and -trafficking ring of Brits who were forced to relocate to the Amsterdam region in the 1980s. Over the years, this ring made the news on several occasions.

The first time was in 1990, when a teenage victim-witness, Andrew, contacted welfare workers of the British National Association for Young People In Care (NAYPIC). Andrew claimed to have been a victim of a British pedophile ring and forced on several occasions to film snuff movies in a warehouse in or around Amsterdam. The welfare workers were skeptical, but until further developments the teenager was allowed to live in the home of NAYPIC's London development officer, Mary Moss. Just before Andrew was to give a more official testimony, he was drugged and pulled into a van, right in front of Moss' home. The teenager had already been threatened and followed in the streets before this kidnapping. It's not known if he was never heard of again. The report on Andrew also stated:

"Welfare staff at Naypic have been convinced by Andrew and other runaways that such [snuff] films are being made. They have been told of a paedophile group known as the Elite Twelve, which is prepared to pay up to Pounds 5,000 to youngsters to make videos involving torture and sado-masochism, and which may lead to murder."

"They have also been told of a snuff movie made last year when a 14-year-old boy was beaten by three men in an East End flat, raped and battered to death with clubs."

Chris Fay, an adult adviser to the association, said: "I am convinced such videos exist. I have been shown one in Amsterdam by a Dutch colleague. It showed three men wearing leather masks cutting up a girl aged about 13 with a flick knife."

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In this article, one of the top experts in pedophilia, Ray Wire, is quoted as having seen snuff movies in the United States. On other occasions Wire explained that he watched them while on a fellowship in the United States with the FBI doing his behavioral study on child abusers

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Apparently, he later stated that the films he had been shown were "sophisticated simulations", but was still sure that the FBI had real ones in their possession

⁶⁷

In April 1997, the British-Amsterdam ring again made the news. The first thing reported was that there had already been inconclusive joint UK-Dutch investigations in 1990 and 1993

⁶⁸

Also, by 1997, these police services were in the possession of at least three statements from child abusers that this ring had produced a number of snuff movies

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Unfortunately, the only film specifically mentioned in the press had all the hallmarks of being fake, and indeed this later appears to have been the case

⁷⁰

The pedophile ring yet again made the news in June 1997 when it was announced that Warwick Spinks, a violent pedophile who ran a homosexual boys club in Amsterdam (who also claimed he could arrange snuff films), was to be released. Spinks had been convicted only two years before for drugging and sexually assaulting a homeless boy, kidnapping him to Amsterdam and selling him to a homosexual brothel. When his apartment was raided, police found his clients' names, details of their sexual preferences, phone numbers and information about young boys.

⁷¹

The most detailed investigation of the British child abuse colony in Amsterdam was published in November 2000 by the Award-winning journalist Nick Davies. Now even more evidence was provided for the existence of not only a vast boy trafficking network, but also for the existence of a small number of snuff movies. As it's always best to read the original sources, a long excerpt from this article follows:

"A year after Bristol detectives finally started to unravel the ring of paedophiles who had been abusing children there for up to 20 years, they found an informant with an alarming story. The man, whom we will call Terry, had a long history of sexually abusing boys. He did not come from Bristol but, by chance, he had come across some of the paedophiles the detectives were investigating - in Amsterdam, where he said they had become involved with a group of exiled British child abusers who had succeeded in commercialising their sexual obsession. The exiled paedophiles were trafficking boys from other countries; running legitimate gay brothels and selling under-aged boys "under the counter"; they had branched out into the production of child pornography. And they had killed some of them... Terry said he had seen most of the [worst] video himself and had vomited before he could reach the end..."

"Soon, other informants were offering more detail. One man said he had seen Warwick Spinks selling a special video for pounds 4,000. It showed a boy whom he thought was only eight or nine being sexually abused and tortured by two men. But the most startling allegations came from a gay man, "Frank", who had gone to Amsterdam in July 1990 and found himself caught up in this paedophile underworld. In 1993, he spoke to the same officers at Scotland Yard."

"Frank told police that Warwick Spinks had invited him to come on a trip to the Canaries, where he had suggested Frank should help him sell videos and showed him a sample. Frank said he watched in growing horror as the video played out a murder - a boy who seemed to be no older than 12 was beaten and attacked with needles, before being castrated and cut open with a knife..."

"[Scotland Yard and their Dutch counterpart] recruited an undercover officer to pose as a child abuser and befriend Warwick Spinks in England. In a series of meetings, Spinks described how he picked up boys in Dresden, in Bratislava in the Czech Republic, and in Poland, where, he claimed, they cost only 10p. The undercover officer asked Spinks if he could get him a sado-masochistic video featuring boys as young as 10, and Spinks replied that he knew people in Amsterdam who could: "I know, well I knew, some people who were involved in making snuff movies and how they did it was, they only sold them in limited editions, made 10 copies or something, 10 very rich customers in America, who paid Dollars 5,000 each or something like that". Spinks divulged no more about the video and failed to produce a copy of it...Without more evidence, Scotland Yard could not justify the expense of keeping the undercover officer or of sending officers to Amsterdam..."

"In search of their origins, I went to Berlin, to the Bahnhof Am Zoo, where the trains arrive from all over eastern Europe, bringing the destitute in search of a dream. A specialist social worker there, Wolfgang Werner, told me there were some 700 east European boys, aged from 11 to 17, who had ended up in the sex industry in Berlin. But, to his knowledge, many hundreds of others had been taken off on a kind of underground railroad which fanned out to Zurich and Hamburg and Frankfurt, and, most of all, to Rotterdam and Amsterdam..."

"About that time [1992], he and Edelman [Germans] stopped trafficking, not so much because of Goetjes's arrest but because they had been told some of the boys were being used in snuff movies..."

"At first sight, Terry might have been describing the video Frank saw but its details differ: Frank described a video shot in a barn; Terry says his was shot in a flat. Frank described the abuse and murder of one boy; Terry says there was a second boy, who was also being abused and who was alive at the point he turned off the tape. And yet, the overlap is striking: the specific nature of the violence is identical; and Terry names the man who actually committed the killing - he is the same German whose barn was allegedly picked as a porn studio by the child porngraphers. Terry, Frank, Edward and Spinks certainly mixed with the paedophile colony in Amsterdam in 1989/90 and all four separately claim at least one boy was killed on video. Spinks told the undercover officer that a German boy was killed; Frank says Spinks once hinted to him that a German boy named Manny had been murdered; we have confirmed from talking to boys who worked in Spuistraat [there were two clubs, owned by vicious paedophiles Alan Williams and Spinks] at the time that a boy of that name and nationality, then 14, did disappear. Terry, however, says he thinks the victim of the video which he saw was Dutch, named Marco and probably 16..."

"The Bristol detectives can get no further. The Dutch say they will not investigate, and Avon and Somerset police have neither the funds nor the legal power to run their own inquiry in the Netherlands."

⁷²

Other evidence of snuff movies had surfaced several weeks before the article above was published. In September 2000, the Italian media broke the story of a Russian child abuse network -centered in Murmansk and Moscow- which besides regular child pornography and hardcore SM, also shot snuff movies, selling them for at least 4,000 pounds per video. The children were recruited through familiar tactics: they were lured away from the street or orphanages with empty promises, while a small number was kidnapped. Most clients, among them businessmen and government officials, came from Italy and Germany; others came from France, Britain, America and Japan. Several "large financial companies" were tied to the network, but names weren't given

⁷³

The Observer reported:

"Last week Italian police seized 3,000 of Kuznetsov's videos on their way to clients in Italy, sparking an international hunt for paedophiles who have bought his products. The Italian investigators say the material includes footage of children dying during abuse..."

"The Russian videos, which had been ordered over the internet, were intercepted when they came into Italy by post, repackaged and then delivered by undercover police officers. They cost between Pounds 300 and Pounds 4,000, depending on what type of film was ordered."

"Covert film of young children naked or undressing was known as a 'SNIPE' video. The most appalling category was code-named 'Necros Pedo' in which children were raped and tortured until they died."

"The Naples newspaper Il Mattino published a transcript of an alleged email exchange between a prospective client and the Russian vendors. 'Promise me you're not ripping me off,' says the Italian. 'Relax, I can assure you this one really dies,' the Russian responds. 'The last time I paid and I didn't get what I wanted.' 'What do you want?' 'To see them die.'"

⁷⁴

Swedish newspaper added:

"The pictures are unbearable for normal people to watch. Here are prolonged rape sequences with children begging to be spared. They are abused until they faint. Then they are murdered in front of the cameras... Yes, there are even scenes of actual autopsies on young people... In the 'product catalog' of the pedophiles were pictures of a 10 year old girl who had been killed by Andrei Minaev, one of the three main suspects of having ran the Russian ring. By the time the affair hit the news, his two partners had already been released from prison due to a recently-launched amnesty program for inmates. The picture is an excerpt of one of the confiscated videos. hanging. A five year old girl with a grimace of pain as she is raped. An adult is killed by gradual crushing."

⁷⁵

Even though this news is hugely important, there have been only a handful of newspaper reports about this whole affair. In Italy, some of the most passionate reporters were quickly done away with after they had shown a number of abuse images in a late night television program

⁷⁶

In contrast to the US media, which appears to have been completely silent on the subject.

⁷⁷

Several British newspapers briefly wrote about the affair. But even in Italy the whole matter vanished from the public eye within one or two weeks with no follow up reports having been published since. So as usual, those who want answers are left with numerous questions: Have the hundreds of suspects against whom evidence was found been prosecuted? What happened to the thousands of others who were still under investigation? Was this network tied to other networks? What happened to the videos? Can snuff movies still be considered a myth?

As for Belgium, besides witnesses in the Dutroux affair, there have been others who claimed that child abuse and snuff networks are a reality.

In July 1998, Marcel Vervloesem and his Morkhoven Workgroup (Werkgroep Morkhoven), a private anti-child pornography group, made international headlines after having obtained thousands of pictures from an internet-based, sadistic, child pornography network, ran from an apartment in Zandvoort (a town near Amsterdam)

⁷⁸

They also acquired a list of clients and associates of this network, which turned out to include the earlier-mentioned Warwick Spinks

⁷⁹

Because the children who appeared in these pictures came from all over the world, international police agencies were very interested and managed to identify several dozen victims. It was mainly the Dutch and Belgian authorities who failed to do their job, and when one reads that there are links to the British- Amsterdam paedophile ring

⁸⁰

A person who probably procured children for high level officials

⁸¹

An anonymous "contact" of the Dutch royal family

⁸²

And one of the girls named by X1

⁸³

Things suddenly begin to make sense again.

Another overlooked fact is the Morkhoven Workgroup's claim that they were in the possession of a snuff film, which they showed to Hubert Brouns, a member of parliament and a mayor of a Belgian county; and Nelly Maes, a former member of Belgian parliament, European Parliament, a senator, and today chairman of the European Free Alliance party. Jan Boeykens, chairman of the Morkhoven Workgroup:

"Several years ago, I saw with Hubert Brouns and Nelly Maes a videotape at Marcel Vervloesem's on which it could be seen how a criminal dressed as a physician raped a constantly crying 4 year old girl in the 'doctor's cabinet' while a 12 year old girl, a so-called nurse, brought in the necessary instruments on a platter."

⁸⁴

Brouns and Maes, together with Marc Verwilghen, the chairman of the Dutroux commission, had reminded the Belgian Minister of Justice in November 1997 about some of the work the Morkhoven group had done, but their recommendations were disregarded.

Researchers of the Morkhoven Workgroup have been relentlessly persecuted and intimidated ever since they first began their investigations in 1989. Vervloesem has been the main target of both the justice department and the media, but he still fared better than one of his colleagues. On November 15, 1998, one of the (part-time) Morkhoven Workgroup investigators, Gina Pardaens-Bernaer, died when she drove into a bridge pillar. Few in her surroundings believed this to be an accident. Pardaens had spoken to a number of friends about a video of a sex party in which a little girl was abused and murdered. She thought to have recognized one the participants in that video as a close associate of Michel Nihoul. It was also said that she had gotten her hands on evidence of a Belgian-French-Swiss child abuse network, and had sent what she had to a very interested Swiss police. In the weeks and days before her death, Pardaens had been warned off her investigation on many occasions: she had received numerous death threats; her son had been run off his bike by a car; emails and phone calls had been intercepted; strangers followed her on the streets and in cars; during a train ride she had been stopped by men who told her to cease her inquiries; at times her phone calls, fax machine and internet were jammed; and she had been interrogated and intimidated over one of the children she had been trying to find.

⁸⁵

It has not been unusual for people who could testify against Nihoul's innocence, or provide evidence of a larger network around Dutroux in general, to be intimidated or killed. There have been at least 20 to 25 suspicious deaths tied to the Dutroux case

⁸⁶

...with just as many reports of intimidation. At some point the deaths became so obvious that Jean Denis Lejeune, the father of one of the girls kidnapped by Dutroux, remarked: "As if by coincidence people die. There is no explanation for their deaths. For instance, they are victims of a October 2006, Marcel Vervloesem with Tiny Mast, the mother of murdered Kim and Ken Hehrman. Mast has also become a good friend of X1. Mast: "Those guys [inspectors she had to deal with] are so aggressive and so inhumane that I sometimes feel that they are part of the same clique as those who took away my children." Marcel, who came from a broken family, grew up in children's homes with 6 of his brothers and sisters. After he and his team had broken the Zandvoort case (and others) his half brother stepped into the limelight to accuse him of the exact same acts he was trying to prevent. Around his half brother a small group of other men came out to accuse Marcel (all came from his half brother's bar). This case has been going on for years, and while the media clearly supports the accusers, a judge recently demanded that the group around Marcel's half brother all be subjugated to lie detector tests, not the least because they (also) have been accused on multiple occasions of pedophilia and other criminal acts. Next to the abusers, the only ones benefitting from this debacle are the magistrates who had to follow up on the cases exposed by the Morkhoven group. That's not to say Marcel is a saint, but there's little doubt that he and his group are continually undermined by those who want to keep the existence of large scale child abuse networks secret. deadly traffic accident just when they are under way to testify. Or one finds their charred bodies. Our judiciary apparently doesn't have sleepless nights over this."

⁸⁷

But besides members of the Morkhoven Workgroup there was another researcher who already in the early 1990s gave detailed information about Belgian child abuse networks and the reality of snuff movies. His name is Belgian Jean-Pierre Van Rossem, and apparently, just before bailing out, he had even arranged to play in one.

No doubt, van Rossem is one of the most eccentric and controversial persons of Belgium. However, even though he looks like a doped-up cult leader, he certainly isn't. In the 1970s, Van Rossem developed a piece of software called Moneytron which apparently could quite accurately predict trends in the money market. With an average return on investments of 18 to 25% in the 1980s and early 1990s, van Rossem gained a fortune of several hundred million dollars and attracted businessman from all over the world. At some point, he also counted the Belgian royal family among his clients. In 1991, van Rossem was sentenced to 5 years in jail on charges of massive financial fraud (released after about a third of the sentence, which is normal in Belgium). It would probably have been a lot longer if his clients would have testified against him. However, a lot the money van Rossem was handed appears to have been dirty.

Just before being convicted, van Rossem had become active in Libertarian politics and had won three seats in parliament. Around the time he went to jail he had begun to write books. One of these books was 'Hoe kom ik van de ground?' ['How do I get off the ground?'], published in 1993, in which he described his experiences with escort-services, brothels, SM clubs and other aspects of sex culture.

Even though he was enormously wealthy and knew everything about finance, van Rossem was mostly shunned by the Belgian aristocracy. Besides his unusual look and simple background, his anarchist tendencies appear to have been the main cause of that. Van Rossem has made numerous peppered statements, not only against the Belgian royal family and Islam, but more recently also about the West's financial clique keeping the third world poor, 9/11 and bird flu

⁸⁸

For his book 'Hoe kom ik van de ground?' van Rossem gathered a small group of people who went to all kinds of different sex clubs to give them a rating. Although this is already quite an unusual thing to do, especially for a reasonably prominent person, that wasn't even close to enough for van Rossem. Van Rossem also tried to unearth evidence of child abuse and snuff networks and it appears that he succeeded in that. His narrative of the whole adventure reads like a somewhat more hardcore version of the 1999 movie 8 mm with Nicolas Cage.

At some point, Van Rossem took with him a well known customer of many different sex shops in Belgium and just across the border in the Netherlands. In all these shops he asked the owner for "more exclusive" material, obviously implying illegal, under the counter magazines, pictures and videos. None of the sex shops in Antwerp and Brussels could or would help him with this request. However, in a few stores in Hulst and Putte (two small towns about 60 km or 40 miles apart, the former just across the border in the Netherlands, and the latter in Belgium. Antwerp is right in between them) he was able to get pedophile magazines, pictures and videos. One of the things that Van Rossem learned was that paedophiles were active at the Dutch- Belgian border who kidnapped children, often for brief periods, to abuse them in front of the camera. Apparently, the Dutch and Belgian police in these areas have numerous dossiers on this kind of abuse, but in the rare cases that a perpetrator is caught, they are usually unable to prove that the abuser is in contact with a network. As numbers on missing and killed children are too unorganized to be very useful, this might very well be true.

⁸⁹

After buying some of the pedophile goods, which included a painful rape of a small child, van Rossem went back to one of the sex shops and asked for even more hardcore material for which he was willing to pay a hefty price. He hinted that he would like to see a girl being murdered on camera. Within a week, van Rossem received what he had ordered for 5,000 euros, a price quite similar to later reports. "The tape showed how the girl was brought into an empty room by a man with a hood over his head. She was handcuffed... The man cut the clothes from her body with a knife. She had scratches and bruises all over her body. He hit her in the face with his hand. After that she was thrown to the ground by the same man and anally raped. When he was done with this, he threw the girl against a wall and began to beat and kick her over her whole body. When she slid to the ground, he went to stand with one foot on all her limbs and broke with both hands her arms and legs. Then for some time he slowly worked on her with a knife, and stabbed her 32 times in total, mainly in the chest and abdomen. Finally, he cut her throat, again slowly. After that, he slowly labored on the girls' body, from the feet to her head, with great attention to the bloody details. It was perfectly clear that the girl was already dead by then. The whole movie had lasted 57 minutes and had not been edited."

⁹⁰

Having been supplied with this video still was not enough for van Rossem. While receiving the video from the sex store owner, he had inquired if he could be present when such a snuff movie was shot. The sex store owner had called to his anonymous supplier with this request and informed van Rossem that something might be arranged. But first he had to give his personal information. Two days after having watched the video, van Rossem was called by a representative of the organization that made these snuff movies, and was invited to a cafe in Breda (Netherlands) that same evening. When van Rossem arrived, a well-dressed man of about 30 years old approached him. This person informed van Rossem that he was to take him to a person "who could help him". Van Rossem was brought to another cafe where a slightly younger, but equally well-dressed man was waiting. This person informed him that they had looked at his personal and financial information and that this was satisfying. In Van Rossem: part time computer expert, financial expert, politician and white collar criminal, but full time anarchist. He referred to "snuff" as "sniff", a term not often used. According to van Rossem, this term has been derived from "sniffing up the real atmosphere of illegal sex" (p. 125 of his book). Apparently, Texan millionaires, Japanese businessmen on a stopover in the United States and Arab sheikhs have become the most important customers of pedophile snuff movies (p. 125-126), which solely refers to movies in which a person is murdered for the exact purpose of filming the event for distribution. One thing we know for sure is that some of the (often Western intelligence-connected) overly religious Middle-Eastern princes and sheikhs have rather interesting sexual preferences. April 23, 2003, The Scotsman, 'Britons held over 'Royal sex ring'': "According to the popular weekly news magazine VSD, the Saudi prince, who has not been named, paid 1.9 million for three months of attention. Some 40 members of the call girl ring from Poland, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the United States, Venezuela and Brazil allegedly travelled to Dubai at the end of January and were installed in a royal palace. The group included several models as well as male prostitutes and transvestites. Members of the ring were paid 27,600 each, the magazine said, as well as receiving presents including watches and jewellery from the Saudi royal... The prostitutes said they were under constant surveillance and were forbidden from making telephone calls." This is by no means the only accusation. The Fortunato Israel prostitution ring also had Arab diplomats and businessmen among its clients, just as men from the notorious Adnan Khashoggi. Although covered up by an alleged child abuser, this ring was also tied to child abuse and murder through Maud Sarr and especially Israel's mistress, Roger Boas (in whose factory allegedly a snuff room was located). Kay Griggs, wife of Col George Griggs, also mentioned some of the Saudi princes in relation to child abuse, sexual perversion and blackmail. X2's testimony raised the question if van Rossem's research hasn't been too in depth for his own good. two or three short conversations over the next two days a deal was made in which van Rossem would be taken to an undisclosed location where he could rape and kill a girl any way he liked. It would cost him 75,000 euros; 45,000 if he only wanted to watch.

Of course, van Rossem backed off at the last moment, leaving the organizers of the event with the impression that he was afraid to get robbed by them. Van Rossem went to one of his other apartments at the sea for the few months to lay low, but before doing that, he had deposited all his evidence and additional information in the mailbox of the Court of Cassation in Breda. Van Rossem waited and waited in the following weeks, expecting to be contacted or at least reading something in the paper about a follow up investigation. Nothing happened and nothing was reported.

The sex shop remained in existence and after some time van Rossem sent one of his contacts to inquire yet again for "special material". It turned out that there was a new owner who couldn't arrange any of this. After the contact explained that it had been possible in the past to get this "special material" at this location, the new owner explained that this is what had gotten the previous owner into trouble. So apparently something happened, but it never made it into the newspapers.

It is clear that van Rossem did as in depth research on the topic as possible, as he himself continually visited the red light districts of every major city he went to. He loved visiting prostitutes. Not withstanding that he did an excellent job with his book, in late 1996, X2 raised some question about how in depth van Rossem's research exactly has been. PV 117.535, November 19, 1996, summary of X2 testimony:

"Parties with under aged children in Eindhoven [large Dutch city near the Belgian border] with Delvoie. 18th century Castle. Departure in convoy from Knokke. The cars with German license plates followed with the little girls. Reception at the castle = a woman = price of 2,000 Belgian franks per person [about 50 euros]. It is necessary to come with another person. It is necessary to take off clothes. A bikini might be accepted. Swimming pool - sauna - solar bench - cold buffet. [There are] rooms without doors to [different] themes. Room with mirrors and cameras. Room with several mattresses. Room with obstetric tables - handcuffs - chains. Karel and X2 [went] 30-50 times to this castle [seemingly an average of about once a month]. Same little girls as those in Cromwell. Clients of the castle: Patrick Denis... Jean-Pierre van Rossem... Baron de Bonvoisin... Jean-Paul Dumont... friend of Patrick Denis = Carine... Another Carine and Patricia who work in the Palace of Justice in Bruxelles... Benoit Hubert... Claude Leroy... [Paul] Bourlee (attorney in Nivelles)... The little girls disappeared when they were about 15-16 years. For the orgies [were used]: little girls of 12-13 years. In the summer of '88, one of the oldest [Eva] (15-16 years) was taken into the sadomasochist room - she was never seen again. The little girls drank alcohol and came out of these parties [completely] numb."

At least in the summary, it is not specified who of the guests did and didn't abuse the under aged girls. It's possible that this was just one of van Rossem's many paid-sex explorations and it is obvious that a one time visit would be enough for anyone to remember him. But still, this testimony does raise some questions.

However, many events in van Rossem's life, which is characterized by bizarre situations and controversial statements, raise questions. In some cases, his statements reflect a huge egotism, but he often appears to be giving the simple truth, something which is not appreciated by everyone. An example relating to the global trafficking of children and women (many other quotes have been taken up in his biography in the accused appendix):

"The Philippines are the target of boy-loving pedophiles, who can get here anything they want. Nine or ten year old boys are loudly offered by hotel managers or by pimps on the streets. Rio has also become a pedophile paradise where boys and girls are offered freely. In Bangkok the lovers of hard sex and extreme SM or similar rushes can find what they are looking for... In clubs there is a floor show in which sex with dogs, snakes, goats or even donkeys, ponies and horses is very normal, and where girls are delivered to hotel rooms on an "everything is allowed" basis... Violent sex, in which the girls or boys are hurt, mutilated or killed, is very normal here. The eastern European countries formerly belonging to the USSR: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have become sex paradises in a very short period... In a timeframe of several years Budapest has become an immense red light area, with hundreds of bars, cabarets and brothels, and has it become the largest rotating platter of trade in woman in Europe. In the streets of Moscow or St. Petersburg thousands of heroin and vodka addicted girls offer their services... Also with us the bars, cabarets and brothels are filled with eastern European girls."

⁹¹

Even though the public still thinks that sadistic child abuse is mainly a crime committed by a few unorganized psychopaths as Dutroux or Fourniret, in professional investigating circles it is widely acknowledged that large, organized, sadistic child abuse networks exist right here in the West. Going through British newspaper archives provides one with numerous reports of pedophiles trading pictures and videos amongst one other, sometimes on a very large scale. Senior executives of Scotland Yard, Europol or Interpol (Bjorn Eriksson) have accepted the existence of large paedophile networks a long time ago

⁹²

Girls X1 had witnessed being murdered

X1 claimed to have witnessed the torture and murder of dozens of children, mainly in the period 1976-1988. She gave the first names of about 35 of these children and claimed to have forgotten the names of another 30 or so

⁹³

Inspectors picked out some of the more interesting names and descriptions given by X1 in an effort to establish her credibility. As a result the investigations into four deceased girls were reopened: Veronique Dubrulle, Christine Van Hees, Carine Dellaert and Katrien de Cuyper. Even though X1's information about these girls turned out to be amazingly accurate, or, in other cases, led to whole lists of interesting coincidences, every single investigation was ultimately shut down.

The life and death of these girls has been described in great detail in the 1999 book the X-Dossiers and the 2004 Zembla documentary. Only occasionally a footnote will be used. As far as possible, every claim has been checked via the PVs.

Veronique Dubrulle, from Gent: After correctly pointing out a picture of Veronique Dubrulle, X1 accurately stated that this girl had died in or around 1983. According to X1, Veronique had been tortured to death with a knife at an abuse party where Michel Nihoul, Annie Bouty, her pimp Tony, Emile Dellaert (father of another murdered girl in the network), a member of the Bert family and several others had been present

⁹⁴

Veronique's father, Jacques, turned out to be an administrator of the cinema company Decatron NV, which was owned by the Bert family, and went on to become the long time chairman and patron of the International Film Festival of Flanders, located in Gent.

Patriek De Baets and his team looked up the death certificate of Veronique and it turned out that she had officially died from a chronic disease, apparently cancer. In any case, because of the nature of the disease, the inspectors couldn't figure out why a neuropathist and a neurosurgeon had signed her death certificate. They went back to X1 and asked if she knew any of these men. According to X1, these two doctors -one of them internationally esteemed at this moment- had been present at abuse parties organized by the Hanet family of UCO Textiles, also headquartered in Gent. She had been raped by one of them, the other was more interested in 7 to 8 year old girls

⁹⁵

The investigation into the death of Veronique was shut down in early 1997. One of the main arguments was that De Baets and his team should have waited with questioning X1 about the two doctors after she had been able to identify them from pictures (couldn't this be done afterwards, some would ask). The investigators were never given permission to exhume the body of Veronique.

Interestingly, around the time the investigation into Veronique's death was closed, the existence of the X-Dossiers was mentioned in the press for the first time. Inspectors who had been put on the Dubrulle case found out that Tony, X1's former pimp, phoned up Jacques Dubrulle three times right after these publications. Later research by the authors of the 1999 book 'The X-Dossiers' indicated that both men were good friends. The parents of Veronique, who were quite prominent at the time, have never tried to defend themselves against the accusations made by X1, which were reported in the press.

According to X1, the two Gent doctors were not part of her pimp's immediate circle and they were not involved in the child hunts.

Carine Dellaert, from Gent: X1 had spoken about a girl named "Clo" since her first interview on September 20, 1996. According to X1, Clo had been 3 years older than herself and was murdered somewhere "between June and December 1983"

⁹⁶

According to X1, at one point in 1983 she had been picked up from school by Tony and taken to a house in the region of Gent. She found her friend Clo there, lying on a bed. Clo was trying to deliver a baby, but in the process was continually raped and tortured. As a result, she had lost a lot of blood and ultimately died. The baby was taken away.

One of the few things X1 was able to remember about the life of Clo, was the street where her school was located. Armed with this information, the investigators were able to present X1 with 1981-1982 class photos on which she recognized Carine Dellaert as being her Clo. X1 also pointed to a certain "V.", about which she stated: "they killed her too". The investigators checked X1's information and it turned out that Carine Dellaert had disappeared on August 30, 1982, only to be found very badly decomposed in an abandoned cesspit on September 24, 1985. She indeed was 3 years older than X1. The other girl X1 identified by name also had died in 1983

⁹⁷

During the investigation into the death of Carine Dellaert, X1 recalled that her Carine "Clo" Dellaert had worn "an ankle bracelet... a chainlet". And indeed, the 1985 autopsy report on Carine Dellaert mentioned that this girl had worn an ankle chainlet. That same report also mentioned that the remains of a laminaria tent were found at the height of Carine's pelvis. The only purpose of laminaria tents is to slowly open up the cervix to make it easier and more comfortable to give childbirth, again supporting X1's testimony that Carine was trying to deliver a baby in her final hours

⁹⁸

Additionally, soon after her daughter's disappearance Carine's mother had found out that her daughter was in the possession of maternity clothing

⁹⁹

In early 1997, the BOB in Gent, headed by prosecutor of the king Jean Soenen, took over the investigation of the X1-Dellaert link. They ceased all cooperation with Neufchateau and began a campaign of manipulation and intimation, which ultimately led to the following Carine "Clo" Dellaert, introduced to the network by her father, according to X1 and Carine's closest school friend. 1999, 'The X-Dossiers', p. 170: "A former neighbor testified that he had often heard Carine Dellaert shouting for help when she was alone at home with her father." conclusion by Soenen (read out in very bad Dutch on national tv): "... the testimonies of Regina Louf, alias X1, have been closed definitively. As an overall conclusion it can be stated that all her testimonies have been totally unbelievable and the [inaudible] of pure fantasy. Her testimonies pertaining to the death of Carine Dellaert are completely wrong. During the investigation it clearly turned out that the girl Clo, if this person even existed, absolutely does not identify herself with Carine Dellaert."

¹⁰⁰

As usual, there's a total lack of respect for the victim and numerous statements had to be ignored and taken out of context before this conclusion could be reached. Besides some of the things that have already been mentioned, one example is the fact that the BOB in Gent claimed that X1's description of the villa in which the murder allegedly took place was inaccurate. The team of De Baets concluded otherwise, the authors of the the book 'The X-Dossiers' concluded otherwise, and finally a court of law also concluded otherwise

¹⁰¹

Unfortunately, the case was already dead and buried by that time. Another important detail about the house designated by X1 that was never investigated by the Gent BOB was that it used to be a brothel, the International Club, where many upper class people came. Coincidentally, the parents of X4 lived next door

¹⁰²

A person named Gustaaf Derdijn had rented the villa since 1991 from the same people who owned the house in the early 1980s. During this time in the early 1980s, Derdijn had been the owner of the Co-Cli-Co, a night club where X1 claimed to have abused by customers of her pimp, Tony, together with Clo/Carine. Investigators found that the Co-Cli-Co was mentioned in Tony's diary. They also found out that when this night club went bankrupt in 1984, one of its largest creditors was Le Cinema Publicitaire, a videostore owned by Tony. The largest creditor was the firm All-Meat, in which not only Derdijn was a partner, but also the Dutch porn king Gerard Cok

¹⁰³

Cok had been in a partnership with "Fat" Charles Geerts since 1981-1982. Geerts is one of the largest porn kings in the world and even more so than Cok, is intimately tied to the Dutch (and international) mafia. Interestingly, Geerts has been accused on several occasions of trade in pedophile movies

¹⁰⁴

Other examples of evidence ignored by the Gent BOB are the testimonies of Kristelle M. and Fanny V. (a pseudonym). Fanny was Carine's best friend at school. She remembered how Carine would often speak to her about sexual abuse by her father and his friends, and how Carine had often thought about running away from home

¹⁰⁵

Kristelle M. was a classmate of X1 who was among those who confirmed X1's relationship with Tony, a person who often waited for her after school. X1 apparently told Kristelle at some point that she was pregnant from this man. Also, according to Kristelle, X1 often went out with a girl named "Christine, Carine, Caroline or Claudine"

¹⁰⁶

In 1998, in the aftermath of the X1-Dellaert affair, some old classmates of X1 apparently confirmed that Carine had indeed been known as "Clo" by some

¹⁰⁷

This would be a direct contradiction to the claims made by the BOB in Gent.

One of the main reasons cited by prosecutor Jean Soenen for his decision to close the case of X1-Dellaert was that she refused to cooperate when confronted with Carine's father, Emile. Unfortunately, Soenen and the press generally forgot to mention the circumstances of this confrontation. First of all, X1 had been confronted with Tony the day before, and even though he confirmed vast portions of her story, she had been completely drained by yet another intimidating confrontation in which all kinds of manipulations took place. Secondly, like Fanny V., X1 had already testified from day one that Carine's father had been the one responsible for bringing her into the sadist abuse network. It apparently also didn't bother the Gent investigators that Emile had already been investigated for accusations of incest in 1977, next to suspicions against him that he had an affair with an under aged girl in the Netherlands in 1965. Because of accusations of incest from his wife and because he waited a week before reporting his daughter missing, Emile became a suspect in the disappearance of his own daughter. During the investigation the police found out that Emile shot "sensual" photos of his daughter, that witnesses at Carine's scouting club thought that father and daughter were acting more like a couple in love, that Carine had become extremely afraid of the woods all of a sudden, and that she was often heard screaming in the weeks before her disappearance

¹⁰⁸

It all didn't matter. Emile would be released, acquitted and later supported by most newspapers after the X1-Dellaert case had broken out.

Christine Van Hees, from the Brussels region: The 16 year old Christine Van Hees was found tortured to death on February 13, 1984, after an emergency fire response to an old champignon factory. The murder had been surrounded by mystery from day one, and those that largely contributed to that (directly or indirectly) included Jean-Claude Van Espen (business associate and family of Nihoul; would play a crucial role in the X-witness investigation, supporting the fraudulent re-read conclusions), Guy Collignon (chief investigator of the Van Hees murder; apparently acknowledged a cover-up to Christine's brother), Baudouin Dernicourt (later one of the main X-witness re-readers), Didier de Quevy (lawyer of Alexis Alewaeters and soon Marc Dutroux) and Jean-Paul Dumont (CEPIC lawyer; accused by different sources of being part of the Nihoul abuse network). A group of punks was implicated, but no evidence could be found, only false leads.

Over a decade later, on October 25, 1996, X1 mentioned a number of girls that she had witnessed being murdered. Among these names was a "Christine". Because of the details X1 provided, De Baets and Hupez began to think about "le crime de la champignonniere". According to X1, Christine had met with Nihoul in October 1983 and somehow began a relationship with him. After a while, Christine began to figure out that Nihoul was a pretty bad guy, but was afraid to speak about him to her parents. She feared that Nihoul and his friends might hurt her, or possibly her parents. Also, Nihoul had persuaded Christine Christine Van Hees. to have sex with X1 and participate in orgies. She was afraid that her parents wouldn't understand.

Against all protocols of the network, X1 encouraged Christine to try and speak with her parents. X1 briefly mentioned her advice to Christine to Mieke -another girl from the network- who unfortunately became so afraid of reprisals that she informed Nihoul and Tony about X1's dissent. As a result of that, X1 and Christine were taken to the abandoned champignon factory where Christine was murdered.

Whole documentaries can be made about just the X1-Christine Van Hees aspect of the X-Dossiers. To keep things relatively short, below is a quick summary of facts which indicate that X1 spoke the truth about Christine Van Hees and her murder. These facts have mainly been discussed in De Morgen newspaper, the 1999 book 'The X-Dossiers' and the 2003 Zembla X-Dossiers documentaries.

• X1 had stated that Dutroux, who she described as a bit of an outsider, was present at the murder of Christine. Research showed that in the early 1980s Marc Dutroux and Bernard Weinstein visited the same skating rink as Christine Van Hees. According to Michele Martin, Dutroux went there alone since 1983 to make it easier for him to "seduce girls". Just before her death, it is known that Christine had a date with a "Marc" who could well have been Marc Dutroux. However, no conclusive research has been carried out. Additionally, Nathalie Geirnaert, a friend of Christine who lived in the same street as her, recognized Marc Dutroux on two old pictures from the early 1980s as someone who she had seen in the company of Christine. Nathalie explained that in the days before her kidnapping, Christine had become extremely scared of someone or something. When she would leave Nathalie's house, Christine would ask Nathalie to accompany her to her house or ask her to stay at the door until she was inside. The night before the murder Nathalie noticed a suspicious black car in front of Christine's house from 23:30 to 13:00. A man had been sitting behind the wheel the whole time. Nothing was done with Nathalie's testimony.
• According to X1, Christine had met Nihoul in October 1983 and had begun a relationship with him. Friends of Christine later testified that she had begun to act different for the first time in October 1983. Also, Christine often went to the swimming bath of Etterbeek. One floor above this swimming bath the radio show of Michel Nihoul was located. Nihoul had already been very active in Etterbeek through the Dolo. Coincidentally, during the investigation into Christine's murder an anonymous tip came in that the Dolo in Etterbeek was the key to solving the Christine Van Hees murder. No investigation was carried out. In fact, somehow the investigators, headed by Van Espen, managed to write down that the tip was about cafe Chez Dolores instead of the Dolo.
• In late 1984, Fabienne Kirby, a friend of Christine Van Hees in her final months, gave a testimony that would not be incompatible with the one of X1 12 years later. According to Fabienne, Christine had told her how she had ended up in a dangerous group of people involved in sex orgies and apparently sadism. PV 7112, February 20, 1984, Fabienne Kirby (anonymous at the time) to the judicial police: "We got to know each other in October 1983. Over time our discussions became more and more intimate. Christine told such unbelievable stories that I slowly became convinced that she made things up. She told me that she had gotten to know a group of people. She regularly saw them at an abandoned house close to her house. She regularly saw these people in the months October and November 1983. These people were older than Christine. She explained to me that meetings were held in that house, to which a road led about nobody knew. Other girls were in the group. Sometimes, she said, she went alone to the house to write her diary. Christine never spoke about this with girls from her school class. I was bewildered when she told me what happened there. She told me that if she ever spoke about this with her parents or brothers, her so-called friends would kill her and burn down the house. She told that in the group free love is practiced... She told me that this group attracted and frightened her at the same time. In early 1984, I noticed that Christine had changed a lot. She had lost weight, was paler and in any case took less care of herself. She said she wanted to blow up all bridges because very bad things had happened. I noticed that she had bruises, and a cigarette burn on her arm. She then explained that it had started as a game, that those games had started slowly, but then became violent. Christine had come into conflict with one of the other girls in the other group. She felt very much attracted to a member of the gang. She told me that it was possible to feel sexually attracted to a man, without really loving him. She truanted from school. About her friends she said: 'They are pigs, but I feel good with them.' She said me that, once you ended up in that milieu, you never got out. It was of little use, she said, to talk about it with someone, because no one would believe her.'" Kirby explained that she had undergone an abortion during the time that she knew Christine. The father would have been a member of the Derochette family and a full cousin of the now well known pedophile Patrick Derochette. A law clerk of examining magistrate Jean-Claude Van Espen, who headed the investigation into Christine Van Hees, married into the Derochette family and was tied to the kidnapping and murder of Loubna Benaissa. It is known that a woman named Nathalie Perignon phoned up Fabienne during the Dutroux and X-witness investigation. Coincidentally, Perignon had been present with three men in a black car observing the champignon factory where Christine had been murdered the week before. All four individuals in the car worked at Nihoul's Radio Activite and personally knew Nihoul.
• X1 was blindfolded and bare-footed when she, Christine and the abusers stepped out of the car. Before entering the compound she felt a lot of gravel under her feet. It is correct that in 1984 there was gravel all over the place.
• The compound she was brought into smelled moldy, like it hadn't been used for a long time. This seems likely, as the champignon factory had been abandoned since 1972.
• X1's overall description of the champignon factory where Christine was murdered is accurate. The former owner and his son could step by step find themselves in the description given by X1; from stepping out of the car to the location where Christine had been murdered. The son of the former owner of the champignon factory to Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part I' (March 11, 2003): "The doors. We had very special, hand-made doors. Old doors with ornaments, which she described perfectly. She knew all that. She drew the chimney and the living room. It matched quite well. The chimney looked like it. She drew the rose window. A rose window is a rose window. It could well be our rose window. What she told about the champignoniere was accurate. I showed the description [of X1] to one of my brothers. That girl had to have been there. There's no other way." 1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulte and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 244-245: "The son is responsible for a stir when the texts [descriptions of the champignoniere of X1 and an inspector at the scene. They differ] are presented to him. 'That police officer has not been inside there, your witness X1 was'... The police officer in question, Jacques Dekock, is summoned that evening and immediately confronted with the son. The confrontation doesn't last long. It's true, he admits. He was so dismayed by the body that evening that he hardly looked at the rest of the building. The complex was demolished in 1989. Nowhere information is available about how the building looked in 1984. It was such a complex clew of houses, hangers, driveways, halls and basements that all who would try to do a little guessing on describing the place would be seen through immediately. And that is what is so bizarre. The inspectors just couldn't figure it out how X1 told them that she got there by car, stepped out, stumbled... The son of the owner had no problems with this. Almost immediately he could tell exactly through where X1 entered the building and how she reached the basement. That she stumbled in the hall is logical, he says. More people used to do that. By rebuilding two houses into one, a connection had been created with two stairs: the first one going down, then up again. 'In reality she was in the kitchen', the son deducts from the description of the wallpaper and the tiles - which also is perfectly accurate. He went through it with his family. 'There are things we read in her testimony that reminded us of details that we ourselves had long forgotten, like the motif on the tiles', he later says. Indeed, from the kitchen there was a separate doorway to the basement. And those flesh hooks? Yet another detail that only now recalls memories. 'Of course, then she was in the scullery', the son says. His uncle made meat pies and had created a sort of industrial kitchen in the adjacent building. With a pen in his hand the son draws the route that X1 must have travelled that night. The rugged wooden table, the rain barrel... Yes, yes, his father had left that when he moved out. It is extraordinarily, no question about it."
• In 1984, a tampon with blood on it was found in a building located 30 feet away from the basement in which Christine had been murdered. This matches X1's 1996 testimony that blood in the vagina of Christine had been absorbed with a tampon. The blood type matched that of Christine's. A DNA test was in process in 1999, just as a DNA test on a cigarette butt that had been found at the murder site. However, Van Espen closed the investigation before the results could be made available. Burned notebooks and a satchel belonging to Christine were found in the same building, disproving claims from magistrates that this building was not accessible at the time of the murder. By confusing the description of the building and the basement, these magistrates had first claimed that X1's description of the murder site wasn't correct and that the bloody tampon was irrelevant. However, they were later forced to recant this argument as X1 had always made a clear distinction between the building where the abuse and torture began, and the basement where Christine was ultimately murdered.
• In the last room X1 said she and Christine had been brought, she had seen a rope and a jerrycan. The police report at the time stated that a rope and a jerrycan had been found in the room where Christine had been found.
• According to X1, candles were the only source of light in the building. A candle was among the items found at the murder location.
• Christine's body had been found lying face down, arching back because a metal strand had been tied from her neck to her wrists and on to her ankles. X1 had mentioned how her Christine had been tied up in this same way and with a metal strand.
• According to X1, Christine was set on fire while lying tied up on the ground. The autopsy report of Christine Van Hees showed that her body had been burned to such a degree that it initially was hard to tell her gender.
• X1 described how one of Christine's wrists was penetrated by a "a metal bar... hollow inside... 30 centimeters long". Although the re-readers tried to deny the existence of a wound to Christine's left wrist, the first police commissioner to describe the scene wrote in his official report: "A nail is planted in the left wrist" and indicated that it had been taken from one of the numerous racks that were located in the building. Reading the testimony of X1, the former owner and his family also immediately thought about the racks and estimated the length of these hollow tubes at "30 or 40 centimeters". The "nails" in these racks indeed were thin hollow tubes, which at one time supported the shelves with growing mushrooms. Investigators and magistrates tried to spin the story by claiming that X1 had spoken about a "crucifixion" and specifically a "nail". Earlier, they had tried to claim that no object had penetrated the wrist of Christine. However, they could not convince the officer who had found the body of Christine to change his initial 1984 report.
• According to X1, Michel Vander Elst was the one who beat the nail-like object through Christine's wrist with a hammer. A hammer was found at the location where Christine had been murdered.
• The girl X1 talked about having been murdered was "Chrissie", full name Christine. She gave this name and details about the murder before De Baets and team could match it with the Christine Van Hees murder. Coincidentally, all other details also matched the story of X1.

One wonders how Jean-Claude Van Espen and his aides were able to conclude that X1 could never have been present at the murder of Christine, but that's exactly what they did. Their arguments, which can be read in the victim-witnesses appendix, have been completely discredited. The X1-Christine Van Hees dossier should never have been closed.

Katrien de Cuyper, from Antwerp region: The 15 year old Katrien de Cuyper disappeared in the evening of December 17, 1991 in Antwerp, after having last been seen making a phone call in the cafe les Routiers (the Truck Drivers). She was found dead 6 months later, on June 22, 1992. The autopsy showed that she had been murdered soon after her kidnapping. Those responsible were never caught.

On February 2, 1997, X1 recognized Katrien de Cuyper from a series of pictures shown to her. She explained how this girl had been taken to a castle and was murdered by a group of individuals that included Tony, Nihoul and Bouty

¹⁰⁹

Before she was killed, X1 had noticed that Katrien lacked the routine of the more experienced girls. She thought this girl had been recruited by Tony.

After X1 had given a description of the castle and the route she had travelled, the investigators were able to find the domain in question: Castle Kattenhof in 's Gravenwezel, owned by the de Caters family

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It turned out that this family owned property in Knokke in streets where X1 had already pointed out some apartments where she had been abused

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Baron Patrick de Caters, a co-owner of the de Caters domain, is a member of Cercle de Wallonië, together with Etienne Davignon, Prince Philippe de Chimay, Count Jean-Pierre de Launoit (vice-Président Cercle de Lorraine), Elio Di Rupo and Aldo Vastapane. All of these men have been accused of child abuse at some point, although it must be stated that some of the accusations are more reliable than others. Additionally, next to the de Caters domain, the castle of Axel Vervoordt can be found. Vervoordt is a famous art collector, who counts international pop stars and businessmen among his clientele. He too has been accused of pedophilia. More on that later.

The description X1 gave of Katrien was not the most convincing in the world, although the length and hair color of the girl she had seen did approximately match those of Katrien de Cuyper. In any case, the conclusion of the investigators appointed to this specific sub-dossier that Katrien de Cuyper in no way could have been X1's Katrien is definitely an exaggeration. However, the most telling aspect of the X1-Katrien de Cuyper case is not the conclusion of the researchers.

During the observation of Tony Vandenbogaert, X1's former pimp, it had become known that this person was in continuous contact with a gendarme officer from Antwerp. They would regularly call or email each other. But interestingly, after this fact had already become known, this particular gendarme officer was appointed to a leading position in the investigation into this same Tony. De Baets and his team reminded their superiors that this was an obvious conflict of interest. However, no changes were made, and this gendarme officer became one of those responsible for dismissing the possibility that the Katrien described by X1 couldn't possibly have been Katrien de Cuyper (in whose murder Tony was implicated by X1)

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Another interesting fact about the Katrien de Cuyper case was that in mid 1999, when the Dutch police put together a catalog of pictures found at the Zandvoort home of pedophile The pictures on the left and right show Katrien de Cuyper in approximately the final year of her life. The central picture shows the girl from the network. The mouth, the nose, the lines underneath her eyes, the shape of the face; even the eyes and eyebrows are far from incompatible. Only the hair has a different color, but there are explanations for that. Click picture to enlarge. Gerrie Ulrich, there was a porn photo in there of a girl which closely resembled Katrien de Cuyper

¹¹³

Among the pictures and documents found at Ulrich's were order forms to make requests for specific forms of child pornography. An investigation showed that Ulrich regularly donated large sums of money to a post office box located above the cafe in Antwerp (The Truck Drivers) where Katrien De Cuyper had last been seen making a phone call. Two Dutch porn firms were located at this address: Studio De Pauw and X-Kiss

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Whether or not Katrien de Cuyper was found among the pictures in Ulrich's home, in 2004, the District Attorney's office in Antwerp closed the case by stating that the picture in Ulrich's home was a boy, after having been shown another picture -allegedly a photoshop- of "Katrien" with the body of boy

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Now seriously, does the girl in the central picture even remotely look like a boy?

The Katrien de Cuyper case might not have been as powerful as the previous three, but it certainly remains interesting. And also in this case there's evidence of a cover up.

Who backed up the claims of X1

As already mentioned, in 1998, prosecutor of the king Jean Soenen stated the following on Belgian national television:

"... the testimonies of Regina Louf, alias X1, have been closed definitively. As an overall conclusion it can be stated that all her testimonies have been totally unbelievable and the Court documents filmed by Zembla showing the quote below in Dutch. It's also possible to largely read "Regina had this relationship WITH her consent and not AGAINST her will." [inaudible] of pure fantasy."

¹¹⁶

This has since become the consensus view on X1. However, it's a lie. Even if one only pays attention to the official conclusions of the Veronique Dubrulle, Carine Dellaert, Christine Van Hees and Katrien de Cuyper cases, even then it not only has to be acknowledged that it is a fact that Tony Vandenbogaert had sex with X1 since she was at least 12 years old, but also that her parents approved of this relationship. According to the Soenen's own Gent Law Court, in 1998: "It has been established that Regina, between her twelfth and sixteenth year, had a sexual relationship with a much older and grown man, named Antoine V... Her mother knew about this, allowed the relationship and even encouraged it. Her mother at least felt a platonic love for this same V." This was the unescapable conclusion from information provided by X1, followed by confrontations with Tony and her parents. However, after these three were forced to admit parts of X1's story, they had to come up with an excuse. That excuse became that X1 -as a 12 year old girl- had taken the actual initiative for the relationship and had pressured her parents into giving Tony a key of the house. As lame as this excuse may sound, Soenen and the Gent Law Court were more than happy to incorporate this excuse into their final conclusion as an undisputed fact: "Regina had this relationship WITH her consent and not AGAINST her will." Soenen's aide, substitute magistrate Nicole Left: X1's mother in the late 1970s. Mid and right: X1's parents in 1998, claiming complete ignorance on everything their daughter is talking about. They stated otherwise during interrogations. De Rouck, repeated this "fact" on national television and added that these events had happened too long ago for Tony still to be prosecuted.

If you read the newspapers you would think otherwise, but X1's statements about her childhood in Gent and Knokke have been confirmed by many witnesses. Here's a list:

1. Tony:

   Admitted himself that he had sex with X1 since she was 12 years old (ignoring the testimonies that he already raped X1 at her grandmother's house almost a decade before) and that he had been given a key of the house to enter whenever he pleased

   ¹¹⁷

2. X1's mother:

   Besides "admitting" that her 12 or 13 year old daughter had pressured her into giving Tony a key of the house, she confirmed that her daughter indeed had a sexual relationship with Tony

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3. X1's father:

   Admitted that Tony came into the house a lot more than he had previously stated. Also admitted that Tony picked Regina up from school and that he took her places.

   ¹¹⁹

4. Marleen van Herreweghe:

   Classmate who X1 said should have seen some of the abuse in Knokke and Gent. Marleen didn't confirm the abuse in Knokke, but did state that "there were sexual contacts between X1, that Tony, the mother of X1 and the housekeeper."

   ¹²⁰

5. Carine Verniers:

   Housekeeper of X1's mother in the 1980s who apparently didn't do a very good job, as the home of X1 has generally been described as dirty and messy. Pregnant for the first time when she was 18 years old and ended up with 4 children from 3 different men. She was in therapy for a while.

   Unaware that a camera was taping her confrontation with X1, Verniers accidentally confirmed during a break that Tony, the mother and X1 all had a sexual relationships with each other. She also stated that she didn't believe that X1 was lying. After X1 pushed a little bit, Verniers also confirmed that she suddenly left the house after there were indications that her 18 months old child had been abused. When investigators tried to interview the by then 16 year old daughter, the confrontations ended in panic attacks and denial. No follow-up investigation was carried out.

   In March 1997, investigators found out that Verniers had a lot of phone conversations with Marleen van Herreweghe. On one day Verniers received 38 telephone calls from acquaintances who also contacted Marleen that same day. The investigators suspected that an effort was made to get the stories of these two women straight

   ¹²¹

6. "Odette" (pseudonym):

   "Odette" was a mistress of Tony V. in the 1980s. She confirmed that Tony often visited the mother of X1 and that she assumed that Tony had an affair with her. Odette: "I myself was kind of hungry for sex and like Tony there was no one better in bed... He tried to get to know everything about you... He liked to give people the feeling that he could blackmail them... I don't know what to think about the whole X1-affair and I find it hard to believe that Tony had something to do with those child murders. But still. When I read the book of X1, I cannot deny that everything she wrote about Tony is accurate, down to the smallest details. That was a shock to me."

   ¹²²

7. X2:

   At least two of the locations in Knokke where X2 claimed to have been abused were also pointed out by X1. Another street designated by X2 faced the hotel of X1's grandmother

   ¹²³

   Additionally, some of the abusers mentioned by X2 turned out to be the same as those mentioned by X1, like Vanden Boeynants, Baron de Bonvoisin and the Lippens brothers. There appears to be some confusion whether or not X1 recognized X2 from a picture

   ¹²⁴

8. X3

   Mentioned Vanden Boeynants, an abuser that was also reported by X1 and X2.

9. X4

   X4's parents lived nextdoor to one of the locations where X1 said she and Carine Dellaert had been abused

   ¹²⁵

   X4 correctly identified both Chantal S. and Nathalie C., youth friends of X1, as victims of the abuse network

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   In turn, Nathalie W. identified by name the mother and a sister of X4

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10. X7 (Nathalie C.):

    Confirmed that she was the best friend of X1 between the age of 10 and 14, that she knew about X1's sexual relationship with Tony (X1 told her since the age of 12) and some of the abuse, that she knew about the sexual relationship between Tony and the mother of X1, that she had visited the house of X1's grandmother and that she was forbidden to visit the the first floor here

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11. Nathalie W.

    X1 identified Nathalie W. as a victim of the network.

    ¹²⁹

    and apparently situated her at the sexclub Les Atrebates in the early 1980s

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    X1 also recognized her father

    ¹³¹

    Nathalie W., on the other hand, correctly identified the pimp of X1 as "Anthony" and as a friend of Nihoul (whom she also knew)

    ¹³²

    Apparently, both X1 and Nathalie W. independently referred to Nihoul as "Mich"

    ¹³³

    Additionally, X4 identified Nathalie W. while Nathalie W. identified the mother and a sister of X4 by name.

12. Chantal S.

    Confirmed the abuse of X1 at her grandmother's hotel-villa in Knokke. She remembered only one name, "Monsieur", which turned out to be correct, judging from X1's testimony. Like X7, Chantal gave many details which could be found in the testimonies of others, for example that she was forbidden to cry during the abuse or that she was not allowed to go to the first floor.

    ¹³⁴

    X4 recognized Chantal S. as a victim of the network.

13. Anja D.:

    Classmate of X1 in the early 1980s. Knew about sexual relationship with Tony and that he brought her places

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14. Kristelle M.:

    Classmate of X1 in the early 1980s. Confirmed X1's relationship with Tony and that X1 had been made pregnant by this man. Indicated that X1 knew Carine Dellaert

    ¹³⁶

15. 15. "Fanny V." (pseudonym):

    Classmate of Carine Dellaert. Confirmed X1's story about Carine Dellaert and stated that X1 had the same introvert attitude as Carine

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16. Parents of a classmate:

    In 1979, X1 mentioned to a classmate the abuse that was going on at her grandmother's hotel-villa. After this girl told her parents, X1 was invited over to retell her story. Knowing that X1 could never know all these details without having experienced them, the parents informed the principal of the school her daughter and X1 went to. X1 went to the principal, a nun, to repeat the story and showed the bruises in her neck. The nun told X1 that she was "a fantasizer" and called up her grandmother. Besides being heavily punished, X1 was sent back to her parents in Gent in an effort to stop the rumors that were going round the neighborhood by now. When X1 disappeared from school, the parents of X1's classmate assumed that she had been taken up in a child protection program. However, more than 10 years later they found out that this had not been the case. The girl, nor her parents were asked to testify about X1.

    ¹³⁸

17. Mieke:

    Girl from the network who went to live with X1 and her husband in 1998. She was never asked to testify, but apparently could verify many aspects of X1's story. She is not to be confused with Marie-Theresa "Mieke" from X1's testimony on Christine Van Hees.

    ¹³⁹

Footnotes

¹

PV 150.889, March 24, 1997, Translation of a March 18, 1997 fax from X1; factory; Clo: "[X1] saw that Sandra sucked de Bonvoisin and that Wathelet raped Mieke". X1 accused Melchior Wathelet of being one of the more violent child abusers at the ASCO factory, together with Paul Vanden Boeynants and Baron de Bonvoisin. *) Also accused inPV 151.046, March 23, 1997: "Since 1992, Brassine was in contact with Pascal Willems, a fellow-psychotherapist. Willems looked after two children (8-10 years) who were victims of child molesters and Satanists... The children would have participated in a combined feast and orgy organized by Melchior Wathelet in a castle located in the region of Verviers. The castle belongs to a private association." According to the PV (official report), Willems was severely intimidated by the local head of the judicial police and the advisor of its local youth support section. More information in the 'victims and witnesses' appendix.

²

1996, Fred Vandenbussche (Het Volk journalist, one of the largest Belgian newspapers), 'Meisjes verdwijnen niet zomaar' ('Girls don't just disappear'), p. 32.

³

Ibid., p. 68-69. This claim has been repeated in several newspapers, but in less detail.

⁴

June 21, 1999, The Financial Times, Television preview, Channel 4, 9:00: "[Dutroux] boasted to his neighbor Claude Thirault of the ease with which children could be abducted and then sold. While working on one of Dutroux's four properties in Charleroi, Thirault noticed two water tanks which had been altered to allow access from below. When asked about these, Dutroux baldly stated that he used them for hiding children before sending them abroad. Thirault became an informer and shared all these facts with the police, but they failed to act on these leads or pass on the intelligence to other forces across the country. The police's conduct was marked by disastrous ineffectuality and incompetence."

⁵

Het Volk, Dutroux case timeline: "June 17, 1995: The gendarmerie of Charleroi writes an official report about an illegal modification to Dutroux's home. It's about the widening of a basement hole where an air pipe sticks out from." http://www.hetvolk.be/Article/PrintArticle.aspx?ArticleID=hno19022004_033

⁶

*) 1996, Fred Vandenbussche, 'Meisjes verdwijnen niet zomaar', p. 69-70. *) Also documented in: May 18, 2004, De Standaard (large newspaper), 'Claude Thirault meldde kelderwerken aan rijkswacht' ('Claude Thirault reported basement works to gendarmerie'). Other sources generally summarize this aspect by stating that Thirault tried to inform the gendarmerie about Marc Dutroux since 1993.

⁷

1996, Fred Vandenbussche, 'Meisjes verdwijnen niet zomaar', p. 71.

⁸

Ibid., p. 76

⁹

Ibid., p. 86: "In turn those observations are just a joke, keeping in mind the status of Dutroux as a suspect in a kidnapping case, which, we might assume, would require some urgency for the victims. Six times in two months Dutroux is shadowed, a total of about fifty hours, despite the use of time-energy-saving time laps... That's not even two percent of the total observation period, and according to experienced police officers, so ridiculously little that it was as good as useless."

¹⁰

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 379-380: "Already at the beginning of the investigation Tony V. [X1's pimp] had been shadowed by the SIE [Diana Group]. That happened in the old-fashioned way. He was followed by agents in plain clothes from nine in the morning to ten in the evening. The first shadow operation happened between 18 and 20 October 1996, the day of the White March - what would have been about the worst possible moment to catch a pedophile in the act... At the Neufchateau cell the same question arose as after the observations of Marc Dutroux during the secret Othello operation: Why did they already call it a day at 10 o'clock in the evening?"

¹¹

*) 1996, Fred Vandenbussche, 'Meisjes verdwijnen niet zomaar', p. 88-89: "Operation Othello was not the only source which could have put the judiciary of Charleroi on the right trail of the child kidnapper. Early October 1996 - almost three months after the disappearance of Julie and Melissa and several weeks after the disappearance of An and Eefje - the justice department of Charleroi receives an anonymous letter in the mail, addressed to 'an examining magistrate'. The author warns for the strange habits of one Marc Dutroux... The neighbors complain about the annoying nightly activities of Dutroux. During the day the doors and windows of the house are never opened, the windows on the first floor always remain sealed with black plastic sheets, as if something is being hidden, in the garden hundreds of used car tires are stored. On top of that, the neighbors report to have noticed two 'young girls of sixteen or eighteen years old' in the backyard, who apparently remain in the house but don't belong in the neighborhood and never appear on the streets during daylight... The author of the letter is later identified as Jeanine Lauwens, the mother of Marc Dutroux... [long explanation about how this information was handled by the justice department]... But no bells start to ring. Dutroux is not brought in connection with An and Eefje. And the letter of his mother is not even added to the already thick dossier of Operation Othello... In any case, the information from Operation Othello is kept indoors. Charleroi would never inform the district attorney's offices who struggle with the investigation into the missing girls. Liege/Luik (Julie and Melissa) and Brugge (An and Eefje) get nothing from Charleroi." *) Nov 17, 1996, the Sunday Times, 'Women dote on Belgian paedophile; Murder': "It is a sentiment shared by Dutroux's own mother, Jeanine Lauwens who, it has emerged, wrote in vain to the police warning them about her son long before he was arrested. "I knew he could not be trusted," she said recently."

¹²

*) 1996, Fred Vandenbussche, 'Meisjes verdwijnen niet zomaar', p. 42: "The basement under the home of Dutroux-Martin has the shape of an upside-down L, what clearly deviates from the rectangle living room on top. That shape has to have been noticed immediately by the detectives who searched the basement - and they would have to have wondered what was hidden behind those angular extra walls. The basement of a rental apartment maybe? Not a chance, because the home next to house 128 at route de Philippe-ville is a garage, without a basement entrance. Also the wood- and plasterwork of that peculiar part in the basement differs from the other walls, which are bare and consist of very old bricks with mortar crumbling from the moister. But the walls which Dutroux has built in the basement and after which the cell bunker is hidden, have been carefully finished with plastic panels... Did nobody ask why those two basement walls had been so carefully maintained while the rest looked so old? One tap with the finger against the plasterwork would have been sufficient to hear the sound of a hollow space. Those sound totally different than a tap on the other, solid basement walls..." *) March 31, 2004, Het Nieuwsblad (same as Het Volk), 'Slotenmaker: 'Ik hoorde twee kleine meisjes'; Slotenmaker spreekt theorie van rijkswachter Michaux tegen' ('Locksmith: 'I heard two little girls'; locksmith contradicts the theory of gendarme officer Michaux'): "[Father of Julie Lejeune:] But the wall which hid the cage had been freshly painted. White. The rest of the basement was an unimaginable mess, you said yourself. That would have to have been noticed?" - [Michaux:] 'I didn't think of that, Mr. Lejeune. Really. Renovation was going on everywhere in that house. It was a dump, really. I am sure - if I had entered again today and would hear the same thing [children's voices] - that I still wouldn't find the cage.'"

¹³

March 31, 2004, Het Nieuwsblad (same as Het Volk), 'Slotenmaker: 'Ik hoorde twee kleine meisjes''; Slotenmaker spreekt theorie van rijkswachter Michaux tegen ('Locksmith: 'I heard two little girls'; locksmith contradicts the theory of gendarme officer Michaux'): "[Lejeune testified:] I remember almost nothing of the house search, except one thing: when I went down with Rene Michaux and handed him a searchlight, we both clearly heard two children's voices. Of two little girls. One said three or four words, the other briefly answered; one word of one syllable. It lasted a few seconds. At that moment, a colleague of Michaux came running down the stairs making a lot of noise. Michaux shouted: "Tais-toi - Silence!" We heard nothing after that anymore." Michaux stated that they heard no voices, only a short murmur.

¹⁴

1996, Fred Vandenbussche, 'Meisjes verdwijnen niet zomaar', p. 43: "With his wife Louisa he [the father of Julie] went into the basement, the hell in which his daughter died, had himself locked into the concrete dungeon, sighed and spoke without raising his voice. 'And from outside the dungeon Louisa understood every word.'"

¹⁵

*) 1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 72: "On December 6, 1995 Marc Dutroux is arrested. He stays in the prison of Jamioulx until March 20. It is the time of the house searches of BOB officers Rene Michaux in the Marcinelle home. He hears children's voices there, but ignores them. He confiscates a video there on December 13, 1995, marked 'Perdu de Vue, Marc'. He also finds chains, locks and keys - apparently stuff with whom he chained down An and Eefje. A speculum, a small bottle of vaginal cream, chloroform... More than three years after the facts it also turns out that Michaux confiscated a videotape on which Dutroux had taped himself working on his basement and raping a Czech girl." *) May 5, 2002, The Observer, 'Review: Investigation: Belgium's silent heart of darkness': "He found a speculum on the floor which he lifted, handled and returned to Dutroux's wife without forensic analysis. They found films which went undeveloped and videos which they didn't watch. Had they done so, they would have seen Dutroux building the dungeon." *) February 21, 2004, The Daily Mail, 'Devil of the dungeon': They found a speculum - a medical instrument used for vaginal examinations - but accepted that it belonged to Dutroux's wife. They found videos marked 'Laurel and Hardy' and 'Disney', which they did not bother to play. Had they done so, they would have seen Dutroux raping his victims. *) 1996, Fred Vandenbussche, 'Meisjes verdwijnen niet zomaar', p. 38: "[Laetitia] is able to explain quite clearly how she has been abused, how Dutroux abused her and how camera shots had been made of that. That didn't really surprise the detectives. They found piles of videotapes at Dutroux's where, cleverly between Tom and Jerry and Laurel and Hardy, several minutes of hardcore child pornography was hidden... again and again with that same Marc Dutroux in the leading role: naked, busy sexually molesting sleeping or unconscious girls. The children, not more than about ten different [ones]... are impossible or hard to recognize, but it's certain that neither Laetitia, nor Sabine, nor Julie, nor Melissa, nor An, nor Eefje can be found in those videos. If recordings have been made of Laetitia, as she stated herself, then where are they?"

¹⁶

The whole story is documented in: *) 1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 124-126. *) 2004, Herwig Lerouge (used to be editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine Solidair), 'Het Dossier Nihoul: De knoop in het proces-Dutroux' ('The Nihoul Dossier: The knot in the Dutroux trial'), p. 137-138. Most of the story can be found in the 'investigators' appendix.

¹⁷

January 18, 1997 note from officer Theo Vandyck (Nathalie W.'s first primary interviewers) that was incorporated in the X-Dossier.

¹⁸

May 11, 2004, Het Volk, 'Rene Michaux has to testify again': "[Bourlet:] "Sabine and Laetitia have spent 48 hours too long in the cage in Marcinelle. Their suffering could have been two days shorter. Why? That's what I've been asking myself in the past eight years... Why didn't Michaux find the letters of Sabine which she had hidden under the carpet?" Michaux reacted by saying: "I was searching for Laetitia, not for some letters. I sure wouldn't have found Laetitia under the carpet.""

¹⁹

April 7, 2004, Herwig Lerouge en Axel Bernard for Solidaire, 'Proces Dutroux-Nihoul; Aarlen en Brussel, een wereld van verschil' ('Dutroux-Nihoul trial; Aarlen and Brussels, a world of difference'). This article talks about how Michaux, who headed both the late 1995 and August 1996 searches of Dutroux's homes, appears to have made numerous procedural mistakes and how most of his statements on the videos he found contradict each other. http://www.solidaire.org/international/print.phtml?section=A2AAAGBA&object_id=23324

²⁰

*) August 25, 1996, The Observer, 'The Child Abusers': "Hundreds of videos of children being abused have been found at one of the houses. Marc Dutroux is taking part in sex with children in some the videos, and they are being studied to see if the children can be also identified." *) August 27, 1996, The Times, 'Police link murdered girl to child-sex case': "Police have seized more than 300 video tapes, featuring Dutroux and others in sexual acts with children. Michel Bourlet, the chief prosecutor, has promised to book all adults appearing in them, provided, he said, "that I am allowed to"."

²¹

*) 1996, Fred Vandenbussche, 'Meisjes verdwijnen niet zomaar', p. 114: "... detectives who have to go through the nearly 5000 confiscated videos to identify faces of victims and abusers."

*) October 17, 1996, The Independent, 'Belgian protest goes on despite justice promise': ""Everything is being done to pursue the investigation," he [justice minister Stefaan De Clerck] said, adding that 350 people are now working full time on the case sifting through 5,000 videos of child pornography for incriminating evidence." 350 people working on the Dutroux case is a fact, but it seems that the 5,000 videos is something that was added by The Independent, assuming this was an already confirmed fact.

*) October 21, 1996, The Daily Mail, 'A human tide on the turn against evil': "That extraordinary decision, compounded by the initially inept investigation, has fueled suspicion of a cover-up to protect VIPs reported to feature in some of the 5,000 child sex videos seized at Dutroux's house... A recent opinion poll revealed that 95 per cent of Belgians believed that prominent politicians and police were involved in the paedophile ring." *) November 10, 1996, The Mail on Sunday, 'The grief that turned to rage':"As the bewildered Belgians tried to make sense of what was going on, incredible rumours began circulating that Dutroux might have been protected in some way, that he had friends in high places. Pornographic videos taken from his home were said to feature prominent individuals, one a senior member of the Roman Catholic church. It almost defied belief. Who would protect a psychopath, other than people with something truly terrible to hide?... 'It is quite obvious,' said Katarin de Clercq, Belgian co-ordinator of the pressure group End Child Prostitution Abduction and Trafficking, 'that some people were protecting Dutroux. The government tried to convince us that he was a lone serial killer and psychopath, but now we hear stories about unnamed famous personalities being involved in sex orgies and blackmail and pornographic video tapes. People feel that something is completely wrong here and we have to show we will not tolerate it.'"

²²

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 95: "After the Dutroux affair broke there was speculation for weeks about videos and pictures that would have been found in his homes. Ultimately it would turn out that nothing of this was true." A simple statement maybe, but if there was any truth to the previous statements about the 300 to 5,000 videos these authors undoubtedly would have found out details about it.

²³

April 7, 2004, Herwig Lerouge en Axel Bernard for Solidaire, 'Proces Dutroux-Nihoul; Aarlen en Brussel, een wereld van verschil' ('Dutroux-Nihoul trial; Aarlen and Brussels, a world of difference'): "We still don't know how many videos there were. On March 20, 1996, everything is given back to the lawyer of Dutroux. To this day the confiscated videos of Operation Othello remain a total mystery. Why did the gendarme leadership want those videos at any cost? Why did Dutroux get them back? Have copies been made? What has happened with these? How did commandant Schot knew there were porn scenes on them? They weren't even used to advance the investigation."

²⁴

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 93-113. It took 11 days for Nihoul to come up with an alibi for August 9, 1996 the day Laetitia was kidnapped and Nihoul was assumed to have been seen in Bertrix. The alibi was provided by, of all people, the lawyer Michel Vander Elst. Vander Elst was a visitor of the Dolo and had once been convicted for having provided false alibis for members of the Haemers Gang, after they had kidnapped Paul Vanden Boeynants. Initially, Vander Elst was named as one of the masterminds of the kidnapping after investigators had found out that the kidnappers had been in continuous contact with Vander Elst. Vander Elst was named by X1 as among those involved in sadistic games with young girls and as someone who visited the ASCO torture factory. Vander Elst was a regular advisor to the BVBA Audio Corporation since 1992, which has been linked to pedophilic practices. Additionally, manager of the BVBA Audio Corporation was Joseph Schulman, whose brother Charles was married to the sister of Bernard Weinstein. Nihoul's alibi for August 9 was largely confirmed although participants of an evening barbecue which Nihoul attended couldn't get their story straight. One of the inconsistencies was that Vander Elst claimed that Nihoul came with Bouty, while all others claimed that Nihoul came with Marleen De Cockere. It was only in mid-1997 that a breakthrough was forced. Michel Bourlet was contacted by family V., which had seen Nihoul in Bertrix where Laetitia was kidnapped, and had to hear how this family wanted to withdraw their testimonies after having been intimidated over a period of many months. The family (again) mentioned how they were sure that they had seen Nihoul and how they later that day attended an evening market. That last remark prompted Bourlet to launch an inquiry into the date when this evening market had been organized, something which the original interviewers of the family somehow didn't think of (they just told the family it had indeed been organized on August 9). It turned out that the evening market had been organized on August 8 and that this was the date the family had seen Nihoul at the swimming pool in Bertrix where Laetitia would be kidnapped the next day. The details the family gave about the evening market proved they had been there. The family was shown car wrecks for Dutroux's garden and they picked out the Renault Trafic that they had seen on the parking lot of the swimming pool where Laetitia was kidnapped the next day. It was the same Renault Trafic that other witnesses had pointed out as having seen in Bertrix on August 8 and 9 with Dutroux in or next to it.

²⁵

*) 1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 111-112: "That small inattentiveness of the gendarme officer has far-reaching consequences for the Nihoul dossier. The whole investigation around the alibi of of Nihoul, now for August 8, has to be entirely redone one year after the facts. Family V. will we heard a total of eleven times. What they exactly did that day, who they saw... [They had been standing face to face with Nihoul, Dutroux and Lelievre at the Bertrix swimming pool for at least half an hour the day before the kidnapping of Laetitia after having visited this same swimming pool] Inquires are made at the police of Bouillon. That of the porch-merchant is accurate. The three family members again are shown a series of pictures of the cars and wrecks from the backyard of Dutroux. They pick out the Renault Trafic of Dutroux - he had two of them - which they had been looking at [because it was such a wreck and had been planning to buy a new car] on the parking lot of the swimming pool. It is the same car as the student pointed out. In addition to the Flemish family seven others testified in Bertrix that they had seen Nihoul in Bertrix. Some spoke about August 8, others were in doubt about the exact day. Miss M.H. is sure that she had seen Nihoul the evening before the kidnapping on the Croix-Mauray-square in Bertrix. A young female cook of the near bye camping has seen Nihoul just past midnight standing on the side of the road, next to the parked van of Dutroux. 'Our working day was over, I drove home with a group of friends', she told. 'We were near Herbeumont, near Bertrix. That's where that van was. We slowed down, because it seemed as if they had car trouble. That's why I could take a good look at the people who were standing next to it. About one of them I'm sure. That was Nihoul. I remember this so well, because soon after the disappearance of Laetitia the gendarmerie stopped by the camping to ask a few question.'" *) January 18, 2003, Het Niewsblad, 'Dutroux, Lelièvre en Martin naar assisen' ('Dutroux, Lelièvre and Martin to assizes'): "Some witnesses claimed to have seen Nihoul at the swimming pool of Bertrix the day before the kidnapping of Laetitia. The council chamber is of the opinion 'that the witness testimonies lack any coherence'. [which is ridiculous to say the least]

²⁶

2004, Herwig Lerouge, 'Het Dossier Nihoul: De knoop in het proces-Dutroux' ('The Nihoul Dossier: The knot in the Dutroux trial'), p. 62-63. Cites PV 2.557, August 29, 1996.

²⁷

Ibid., p. 60-61. Cites PV 2.739, October 9, 1996, part 2688 (apparently not taken up in leaked Dutroux dossier summary).

²⁸

Ibid., p. 72-73. Cites PV 100.223, August 19, 1996 and PV 100.241, August 22, 1996.

²⁹

Ibid., p. 62. Cites PV 2.557, August 29, 1996.

³⁰

June 22, 2004, Planet Internet News (Netherlands), 'Dutroux krijgt levenslang en tbs' ('Dutroux gets life and tbs'): "Michel Nihoul got five years for drug smuggle and trafficking in women, instead of the requested ten years. His defence pleaded that Nihoul was only guilty of the drug offences, gangsterism and trade in humans." Nihoul has been convicted so many times for financial fraud that it apparently wasn't even interesting enough to repeat it in this article. *) April 16, 2007, Gazet van Antwerpen (Gazette of Antwerp), 'Nihoul wil namen noemen die 'gecensureerd' zijn' ('Nihoul wants to name names that are 'censored''): "On June 22, 2004, Nihoul was sentenced by the court of assizes of Aarlen. He was found guilty of leading a gang of criminals involved in trade in drugs, cars, identity papers and humans. He was acquitted of facts that pertain to the kidnapping of children. He was released on probation on April 26, 2006."

³¹

June 17, 2004, Planet Internet News (Netherlands), 'Dutroux schuldig aan drie moorden' ('Dutroux guilty of three murders'): "The jury was divided over the question if businessman Michel Nihoul is guilty of kidnapping. But Dutroux's co-defendant Michel Nihoul, according to the court of Aarlen, is not guilty or an accomplice in the kidnapping, rape or murder of the girls. That is what the three judges ultimately have decided. The judges had to decide on that, because the twelve members of the jury declared him guilty with a minimal majority of seven to five. In these instances Belgian law states that the judges have to decide. The possible involvement of Nihoul in the kidnappings really was the key question in the Dutroux trial. Because he now has not been found guilty, there really isn't any evidence for the theory that has been going round in Belgium that there were larger networks of pedophiles behind the kidnappings of the girls." [Yes, a rather bizarre statement]

³²

*) July 3, 2004, De Morgen (Belgian newspaper), 'Tien redenen voor een proces-Dutroux-bis' ('Ten reasons for another Dutroux trial'): "The jury has judged that Nihoul was a member of the Nihoul-Dutroux- Lelievre gang which was active in human- and drug trade, car swindle and fake identities. His claim that he would have infiltrated the Dutroux gang as a police informant is not being believed... Seven of the twelve jurors are convinced of the involvement of Dutroux in the kidnappings [of Dutroux's victims]. Such a vote is only normal, as against the numerous witness testimonies, suspicious transactions or physical- and phone contacts, Nihoul only countered with lies, also at the trial. The professional judges have saved Nihoul. That has been confirmed by the jurors. The jury did not pass on the hot potato of the question of guilt of Nihoul to the professional magistrates. "It was a real vote", multiple jurors say to De Morgen, "and this was the result. We thought: the court will follow the majority. But that's exactly what it didn't do. That was a shock to many of us. That's not what we expected." All questions about ties between Dutroux and a possible organized form of child trade and -abuse remain open. We still don't know what happened to Julie and Melissa. For seven year Langlois has hold on to the thesis that they died from starvation during the jail sentence of Dutroux in late 1995, early 1996. At the trial this version turns out to be untenable. Even the nutrition expert, who wrote a report at his [Langlois'] orders, says that. But what did happen?... We know nothing about it. Because Langlois wasn't even willing to identify the DNA of more than twenty unknown individuals who had been in the basement of Dutroux, just as the sperm of an unknown individual which had been mixed in with material belonging to Julie. He didn't want to compare that DNA with a number of known pedophiles, in part from Nihoul's circle of acquaintances... Langlois wanted to get everything out of the picture which wouldn't lead to the lonesome pervert... He has refused to take up in the dossier the official reports dealing with the connections of Nihoul to organized crime. Supposedly because they didn't have anything to do with the kidnappings. Five heads of investigation came to complain at the trial: Langlois had forbidden them to look into the milieu of organized crime, neither around Nihoul, nor the mafia in Charleroi. Within the federal police there still is a gendarme hierarchy active, which allows the officers to put pressure on their subordinates. To this day, ex-gendarme officers, under the watchful eye of their former superiors, come to give false testimonies, even under oath. Examining magistrate Tollebeek, tasked with the investigation into the kidnapping of Sabine, confirmed that, just as honorary prosecutor Poncelet of Mons." *) 2004, Herwig Lerouge, 'Het Dossier Nihoul: De knoop in het proces-Dutroux' ('The Nihoul Dossier: The knot in the Dutroux trial'), p. 209: "Langlois doesn't exactly know who did what. He never clarified the circumstances in which Julie and Melissa were kidnapped, raped and murdered. He doesn't know when, why, by whom, or on whose account this has happened. He doesn't how it is possible that the two girls survived in the basement of Dutroux for 106 days, in the absence of their kidnapper." Also, don't forget note 25, about Nihoul having been spotted at Laetitia's kidnapping site.

³³

The individual stories of these victims have largely been written down in the 1999 book 'The X-Dossiers'. Certain details in the biography are referenced in the appendixes or later on in the article.

³⁴

That's the basic story one gets when reading through reports of children being abused in networks. In most cases involving children born in the West the abuse starts at home, which of course includes foster homes (can't really vouch for the second and third world). *) December 13, 1987, Syracuse Herald Journal (based on an AP story), ''Blaming the devil' hurts prosecution of child abuse cases': "The federally funded American Humane Association in Denver says 113,000 child molestations vere reported nationwide in 1985, the last year for which statistics were compiled. That figure is up from 100,000 reported cases in 1984... In 75 percent of reported cases, abuse comes from within the family, [AHA spokeswoman Katie] Bond said..." *) Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) website, statistics section, information based on the 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice: "Contrary to the belief that rapists are hiding in the bushes or in the shadows of the parking garage, almost two-thirds of all rapes were committed by someone who is known to the victim. 73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger — 38% of perpetrators were a friend or acquaintance of the victim, 28% were an intimate and 7% were another relative."

³⁵

major clue is the regular references to high society figures able to stay out of sight in the wake of a major child abuse scandal. Examples: *) The Dutroux case is a pretty clear example in which all leads to a larger network surrounding Dutroux and Lelievre were ignored. *) June 6, 1996, The Guardian, 'True scandal of the child abusers': "From East Belfast's Kincora Boys' Home, via Leicestershire, Staffordshire and London, to the children's homes of Clwyd, we have witnessed 25 years of cover-up. Cover-up, not to protect the innocent but to protect the regularly named elements of the British establishment who surface whenever widespread evidence of child abuse is exposed. From the public schools right through to the Catholic and Anglican churches, child abuse has been allowed a special place of sanctuary... Social workers, police, security services, local and national political figures remain the common factors in the fall-out from the [child abuse] inquiries... In case after case the cycle is described - a child is 'taken into care', then abused in a home, handed on to an outside paedophile ring and out on to the rent-boy/prostitution circuit beyond, if they live that long... Journalists find themselves battling first with authority, then with the libel laws, to publish the truth about a vast web of abuse." *) June 3, 2003, The Guardian, 'Toulouse officials ordered murder, says serial killer' (longer extracts can be found in the column on the left): "Alègre [a jailed serial killer], a policeman's son, organised the city's prostitution business, providing under-age girls for sadomasochistic orgies at a courthouse in the city and at a chateau owned by the town council." *) July 21, 2004, The Daily Mail, 'Was Jo killed by a sex cult? For 14 years Leeds student Joanna Parrish's murder in France has been unsolved. Now the arrest of a serial killer poses the chilling question: was she murdered by a cabal of high powered men obsessed with rape and torture?' (longer extracts can be found in the column on the left): "The case for the conspiracy theorists was further strengthened in 1984 when a horribly mutilated woman escaped from a house in a village close to Auxerre and led police to a cellar where she and two others had been imprisoned for up to three months and subjected to appalling abuse. A list of 50 people, rumoured to include several French 'notables' who had paid various rates to torture and abuse the women, was discovered by police. It would later go missing from a courtroom in Auxerre, and only Claude Dunand, a factory worker and his wife, Monique - who both lived in the house - were jailed." *) April 25, 2005, Time Magazine - Europe, ' A Town Called Angers; How one community in rural France is coping with allegations of systematic sexual abuse of children': "Police are still searching for a group of men, who the children say arrived at Franck V.'s apartment in suits and ties, with their faces hidden behind masks — a striking contrast to the largely uneducated, unemployed defendants who fill the courtroom in rumpled sweatshirts and scuffed sneakers. Franck V.'s lawyer Pascal Rouiller says he is convinced the men were part of a sophisticated network of pedophiles who tapped into Angers' underbelly as word of the prostitution ring spread. They brought in customers who "had money, made appointments, and were punctual," Rouiller says. One man paid €458 for one sexual assault on a child, and Franck V.'s wife, Patricia, regularly took in about €1,200 a month. "Franck had telephone calls from the whole of France," says Rouiller. "He's a poor miserable man with no intelligence. He had no reason to have contact with people in Montpellier or Lille." Much like the pedophilia scandal that rocked Belgium in 1996, Angers is awash in suspicions that a wider ring of wealthy customers was among the child rapists, and is still at large."

³⁶

We could see examples of this in the Franklin case, the Mirano case (VM1) while X1 also discussed this subject extensively. Additionally, take this report from England: April 1, 1990, Sunday Times, 'Satanic ring forces families to suffer from a hell on earth; Sexual abuse': "At the age of eight, Kevin's father had introduced him to a group of men who performed rituals involving sexual and sadistic acts. He talked about watching pornographic videos and being made to take part in them. He said he had been drugged and that, on occasions, animals were sacrificed he had been warned that a similar fate awaited him if he ever told anyone what was happening. Charlie named 20 other children who were sometimes present. He also named some of the adults, giving a list which included a teacher from his own school. By the time Charlie revealed this to his mother he was 11 years old and deeply involved so much so that he had become a recruiter, bringing in other children in exchange for money."

³⁷

Discussed in detail by X1. Trying to get new children to voluntarily have homosexual sex is very popular ("You're a big girl now, don't be childish", etc.), just as overwhelming young, extremely neglected children (like X1) with presents and attention, soon followed by the abuser sexually touching the victim. If the child allows the touching, i.e. "volunteers" (after given a few hints by the abuser, thinks: "this person is so good to me, why am I so childish or selfish to refuse him something as simple as sex?"), the game continues with regular beatings for "underperforming" with accusations that as worthless the child already is, he or she can't even satisfy the one person who truly "loves" him or her. There are several variations, but this is approximately how the initial psychological game works. Often, in later stages everything is just about avoiding the pain or not having to deal with the guilt of someone else being tortured for the mistakes you made. Depends on the type of network a child ends up in. In case of X1, a pretty sophisticated one.

³⁸

*) First of all, there are a few problems with classifying "abducted" children. A number of questions that could be asked: - How often has a child gone missing before? Is the child just running away again? Did it voluntarily go to a particular person or group who might have persuaded it? - How long should the child be missing before it's added it to 'missing persons' statistics? (about 90% of children reported missing resurface within 72 hours; only about 2-3 percent are long term missing children (gone for over a month) or children who were found dead) - In case the child is found dead, was it really kidnapped or just simply murdered? - Was the child abused and maybe often taken places against her will by a network only to be returned later on? (apparently very common, judging from statements of children who ended up in sexual abuse networks) *) However, just because it can be challenging to categorize missing persons, the authorities apparently are not interested in doing so. As with Belgium, Britain also doesn't have a (reliable) centralized database on missing children. October 31, 2001, The Daily Mail, 'How 100,000 children go missing every year': "A child goes missing in Britain every five minutes, according to a report today. Some 100,000 children disappear every year, says the study by the charity Parents and Abducted Children Together. It warns that the figure, based on police reports, may even be an underestimate because there are no reliable national statistics on the issue. The charity is pressing the Government to set up a department within the Home Office to centralise information on missing children and develop a national policy on the problem. Alternatively, it wants a national information and help centre devoted solely to the disappearance of youngsters who have run away, been 'thrown away' by their families or who have been abducted by a parent or a stranger. While the majority of the youngsters are eventually found and reunited with their families, they are at risk while missing, said the charity's founder Lady Meyer. She said it was an 'absolute scandal' there were no nationally gathered statistics on missing children. 'Without reliable data, we cannot know the nature of the problem, which makes it impossible to create policies to protect our children. 'It is shocking that in this country we have statistics for the number of dogs that go missing every year but not for the number of children who go missing. 'One estimate, which we gathered from reports made to police, is that 100,000 children go missing each year but the problem could be much bigger than that.'... Lady Meyer said: 'We need to follow the example of the U.S., which conducted a study in 1990. 'Because they have detailed statistics on how many children go missing and why, the U.S. government has been able to develop policies to protect youngsters.' [do they?]" *) There's another reason, of course, for unreliable statistics and that is complicity of Justice officials in these child abuse networks. The Veronique Dubrulle case, described by X1, seems to one example in which a girl's death from sexual- and other physical abuse was labeled by complicit doctors as a "natural" (chronic disease). The same thing appears to have happened in the following case: June 3, 2003, The Guardian, 'Toulouse officials ordered murder, says serial killer': "Alègre, a policeman's son, organised the city's prostitution business, providing under-age girls for sadomasochistic orgies at a courthouse in the city and at a chateau owned by the town council. In a letter from his cell sent to TV presenter Karl Zero at the weekend, Alègre said that the former prostitutes, known as Patricia and Fanny, were telling the truth about the murders of two other prostitutes which they had witnessed but which he had previously denied... A vice squad detective allegedly assured Alègre, who worked in the police canteen, that [one of] the murder[s] would be classified as suicide..."

³⁹

March 18, 2003, Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part II': "Between 1973 and 1996, 43 children have disappeared without a trace in Belgium, and sometimes were found back murdered; disappearances and murders which have never been solved."

⁴⁰

*) August 26, 2006, Daily Telegraph, 'How Natascha was robbed of her childhood' (this report is apparently referring to alleged long term kidnappings for sexual abuse): "Every year, thousands of children go missing without trace - 200 of them in Austria alone, a staggering 1,850 in Italy. In Belgium, where Marc Dutroux abducted and killed four female victims, 1,022 disappear annually; and in Britain, around 400. Experts fear that hundreds are being held in private prisons." *) 1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 373: "On February 13, 1997, Bille writes to all the district attorney's offices in the country, with the simple question of how many unsolved murders (or disappearances) there have been on persons younger than 30 years old... Eight district attorney's offices will simply leave the letter unanswered: Antwerp, Mechelen, Turnhout, Tongeren, Liege, Leuven, Charleroi and Namen... This is the whole of answers, late April 1997 [only one taken up here]... Brussels: 51 murders since 1991 and 3.000 disappearances, among them 1.300 minors... How broad the interpretation abilities of the magistrates can be, shows from the results coming from Brussels [which is many, many times higher than the other cities, even when taking into account the size of the population]... At a certain point in Brussels, by way of silent protest - 'Our resources are too limited' - dozens of old dossiers are reopened and normal daily activities are almost ceased. By way of demonstrating, the district attorney's office appears to benefit from interpretating a question about missing persons as maximalistic as possible. Still, this fact - 1,300 missing children in Brussels - suddenly makes the fax of X1 a lot less insane."

⁴¹

*) July 1, 2001, The Independent on Sunday, 'An invisible death': "Why do some children who are killed become media icons, while others are forgotten or ignored? For a story to catch on, it seems, it has to echo some deep-seated fear [abduction by strangers]... Child homicide is something which most of us would rather not think about, but it happens every week. In the six months from June to November last year - the months surrounding the deaths of Sarah Payne and Gwen Clapperton's daughter, Daniella Hurst - around 50 children in the UK were murdered, unlawfully killed or died in circumstances which subsequently required special investigation (a Part 8 Case Review) or will be the subject of a trial in the coming months. In July and August 2000 alone, there were over 20 cases of child murder or manslaughter. A handful of these cases had their brief moment of infamy - a photo, a headline with the word "tragedy" - but it's unlikely that you've heard of more than a couple . They're too mundane, too ordinary, to command attention." In a few other articles in British newspapers it was reported that many cases of child deaths involving (sexual) abuse were not classified as such, because doctors and social workers usually want to be 200 percent sure before they dare to bring up this extremely touchy subject. There also were sporadic examples of past murders on street children (a favorite target of abuse networks) going completely unreported. *) December 15, 2002, The Observer, 'Dispatches: There are certain rules in the missing persons game': "It is unlikely you have ever heard of Hannah Williams: the discovery of her body merited only a few lines in the 'news in brief' columns of the newspapers. There were appeals in the local paper, but for a long time it was thought that Hannah had simply run away and would probably come back. Somehow, the national media just never got hooked on the case. There are all sorts of reasons for this, many of them wrapped up in issues about class - Hannah just wasn't the right sort of missing girl to grab the public's attention. Her mum was a single parent and Hannah had gone missing before. Police in London are already overwhelmed with missing runaways from broken homes. The search for Hannah wasn't helped either by a positive sighting by a friend, who said that Hannah was still alive long after she had probably been killed. In recent years, missing persons have become a commodity to be weighed up and assessed for their media potential and police officers have begun to talk about them as such... Hannah Williams wasn't the only one to be forgotten. There has been no national media campaign about Daniel Nolan, a 14-year-old who went missing on New Year's Day 2002 from the seaside town of Hamble, in Hampshire... His fishing gear was found where he had left it, but Daniel had disappeared. He was described by his parents as a mature and responsible boy whose disappearance was completely out of character. On the surface, it seems Daniel was equally as worthy of attention as Milly Dowler, but didn't get it because of his gender. Christine and Peter Boxall know this all too well. Their son, Lee, was 15 when he went missing on the way to a football match in south London in September 1988. He was one of the first cases to be taken up by the Missing Persons Bureau, as it was then. There have been no sightings in 14 years, despite numerous local appeals. His father said: 'I often think if it had been our daughter it may well have been very different. Even today, boys of 15 rarely get publicity because boys can look after themselves, can't they?' There are certain rules in the missing persons game. Don't be a boy, don't be working class, don't be black. As for persistent runaways, children in care or teenagers with drug problems. . . forget it. Milly Dowler was the perfect missing person: a beaming photogenic angel from a comfortable, middle-class home... One spokeswoman from the southeast London police area who dealt with the Hannah Williams case told me that her mother 'wasn't really press- conference material' and that the girl's background made it difficult to build a campaign around her..."

⁴²

In the 1980s in the United States talk about MPD (DID) became almost immediately synonymous with ritual abuse and Satanism. Examples are the McMartin-, Jonestown-, Aquino-, Franklin-, Finders-, Children of God-, and numerous other, smaller cases. Also in the early Dutroux dossier there are several examples of victims claiming that MPD is deliberately created and maintained in victims, and again this is tied to ritual abuse and usually Satanism.

⁴³

February 2003, Merck website, 'Dissociative Identity Disorder' http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec07/ch106/ch106d.html

⁴⁴

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) was founded in 1992, several years after a wave of reports in the United States and Britain about large-scale child abuse, ritual abuse and Satanism. The main founders, Pamela and Peter Freyd, were accused by their daughter, a Ph.D. in psychology working at a prestigious psychology institute, of child abuse. She also claimed her father had been abused himself as a child. The FMSF publishes a newsletter. Certain members of the FMSF are consulted by newspapers to "objectify" stories of child abuse while others make their living by defending individuals accused of child abuse around the country. The FMSF is closely linked to certain organized skeptics organizations as CSICOP.

⁴⁵

summary can be found in False Memory Syndrome Foundation appendix. A lot of the intelligence/mind control information has come from Dr. Colin A. Ross, M.D., who received many FOIA documents pertaining to US government mind control research.

⁴⁶

Juni 1998, Harald Merckelbach for Skepter, edition 11, 'Opkomst en ondergang van Getuige X1' ('Rise and downfall of X1'). Of course, the whole tone of the article is condescending and "sceptic" from the very first sentence and a number of disinformation arguments are featured: the Oliver Trusgnach case (name spelled wrongly as Trusnach), the fact that X1 was forced to participate in the abuse and murder (although Merckelbach forgets to clearly mention X1 was coerced and that this is a very common tactic), examples that De Baets manipulated (all proven false two years after this article appeared) or arguing that media sensation was the cause of X1 initially being taken seriously by some of the newspapers. As expected, X1's psychological disorder is exploited as much as possible (X1 "suddenly remembered" all kinds of details about her past with the "help" of psychiatrist) and the old criticism on the ultra-right is just a conspiracy theory. There are other exploits used by Merckelbach, but you get the point. http://www.skepsis.nl/x1.html

⁴⁷

February 2003, Merck website, 'Dissociative Identity Disorder' http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec07/ch106/ch106d.html

⁴⁸

1998, Regina Louf, 'Zwijgen is voor daders - De getuigenis van X1' ('Silence is for perpetrators - The testimony of X1'), p. 299: "This book first began to take form in July 1988, when for the first time I wrote down in a notebook with pencil my memories and nightmares. I found out that I had different styles of handwriting, and that each of those handwritings belonged to very distinct parts of ´me´. That was very frightening, even more so because I often couldn´t remember what I had written down, and when I reread the pages I stumbled across long-repressed memories. I hadn't really forgotten the facts, they had only been distributed over different personalities, each with its own traumas... In a timeframe of six weeks I wrote down large parts of the book that ultimately would end up with the BOB..." As for the alters having the same age as when they were created, see the quote belonging to reference 52.

⁴⁹

Ibid., p. 122-123.

⁵⁰

Ibid. Described in various locations in the book.

⁵¹

Ibid., p. 250-251

⁵²

Ibid., p. 206-207

⁵³

Ibid. Also all over the official testimonies of different X witnesses.

⁵⁴

Ibid. Also all over the official testimonies of different X witnesses.

⁵⁵

Ibid., p. 145-146

⁵⁶

PV 116.990, November 13, 1996, summary of an interview with X1: "Weinstein had brought a snake that one used on Christine and X1..." PV 116.990, November 18, 1996, summary of an interview with X1: "Bouty is going to look for a snake... Weinstein brought the snake."

⁵⁷

DVD 3 of the leaked and digitalized Dutroux dossier, files 47073774-1 to 4. These files have not been assigned a file number.

⁵⁸

PV 118.869, November 20, 1996.

⁵⁹

See 'the accused' appendix for more information on the Dolo, which has been discussed in books as 'The X-Dossiers' and 'The Nihoul Dossier' and named by victim-witnesses as X1, X2 and Nathalie W. There's a lot of direct (testimonial) evidence and circumstantial evidence about a paedophile network having surrounded Nihoul and various visitors of the Dolo. Example: 2004, Herwig Lerouge, 'Het Dossier Nihoul', p. 123-124 (PV 22.820, October 11, 1996): "I brought Mr. Nihoul to Etterbeek to a house in the Atrebatenstreet. He invited me out to the first floor because he only wanted to pay inside. When I came in, there were three girls of twelve, thirteen years, almost without clothes, only in a nightgown. I saw they were very young because they didn't have any pubic hair. Two of them were foreign, the third I don't know. In the room there also were two men, dressed. Nihoul forced me to take off my clothes and when I refused he threw me out with my shirt and my coat... it certainly was Nihoul... I am also certain that it was the house in the Atrebatenstreet [Les Atrebates club]."

⁶⁰

2004, Herwig Lerouge, 'Het Dossier Nihoul', p. 125-126: "According to Max, Doudou was a contact of an ex-teacher of the Adolphe Max-atheneum. Doudou and the teacher 'made paedophile videos', he claimed. He would have heard Doudou and Nihoul repeatedly talk 'about cages for children, to make them suffer, and about videos imported from the United States on which black children were tortured before being burned in the cage. That was some time in 1992-'93'. 'Dolores Bara knows all about it', he added to that. Has this been checked out? An anonymous letter to the King's prosecutor Bourlet confirms that 'Vanhuyneghem often went to Thailand and said you could find boys there." 'I know that Nihoul is not a paedophile', says Max. He is a notorious gangster, without morals, who can be bought for little. He even says that 'Nihoul has learned to kidnap children, to earn money'. He even tried it in the Dolo, but Forgeot [co-owner of the Dolo] said: 'That's not the way you do that'." Originally from PV 116.166, December 19, 1996.

⁶¹

Ibid.

⁶²

Examples: *) October 2, 1975, Long Beach Press-Telegram, 'Porno death films probed' *) October 2, 1975, Vermont Bennington Banner - 'Death on porno film not fake' *) October 2, 1975, Winnipeg Free Press, 'Film called ultimate obscenity' *) October 3, 1975, Charleston Daily Mail, 'Actress actually murdered' *) October 4, 1975, The Post Crescent, 'Sex-death films believed produced in Argentina'

⁶³

October 2, 1975, Long Beach Press-Telegram, 'Porno death films probed: "... the films, which Horman said were made in South America, possibly Argentina... One film was reported to show sex acts between an actress and one or more actors. Then, according to the reports, a knife is produced and the actress, unaware of the true nature of her role, is stabbed to death and dismembered."

⁶⁴

*) Questioning of Jean-Paul Raemaekers during his 1995 trial: "- Why did you tape those [rape] scenes? - You could earn a lot of money doing that. You could also exchange those videos. - With who? - That happened within a large paedophile network that is active in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. I myself was only a small link. - Who were the others? - I do not wish to testify about that." Two other examples of talk about a network and the swapping of pictures, video and children: *) August 19, 1996, The Times, 'Belgian case throws light on global scourge; Murder': "In Britain alone police estimate that there are 200 paedophile rings that allow people to swap child pornography and even children... Within the rings, paedophiles exchange photographs, contact magazines and addresses. Chief Superintendent Brian Mackenzie, president of the Police Superintendents' Association, said yesterday: "They operate like any other special interest group. Networks and rings form by word of mouth. "Individuals will exchange pornography and quite often they will pass compliant juveniles between groups. The whole thing spreads out and it is difficult for the police to break down." The networks can be very complex and in one case children who had run away from homes had been lured to London by a "safe" name and address, forced into a paedophile ring and, as they got older, were made to abuse recent arrivals. The aim was to turn the children into perpetrators, making it less likely that they would complain to the police... Children have been kidnapped by paedophile rings who make and sell videos featuring child sex abuse." *) January 19, 2002, The Independent, 'In Foreign Parts: Seaside town slowly reveals its macabre secrets': "The little girl [allegedly] was brought by a distinguished-looking Belgian in his 50s to the apartment of Thierry D, a brutal man in his 30s who collected human skulls and allegedly belonged to a large paedophile sex network... The evidence, including detailed statements by children, suggests that Thierry and Myriam D, and other impoverished parents, sold their children's services to wealthier people, including the bailiff, a shopkeeper to whom they owed money and the 64-year-old priest. All are among those arrested. This allegedly developed into organised sex parties with children in a farm house near Ypres in Belgium. The sessions were filmed for sale as videos by a French man and his son, who owned a clandestine video business in Ostend."

⁶⁵

July 29, 1990, Sunday Times, 'Teenager 'confessed' to filming snuff movie'

⁶⁶

July 9, 1989, Sunday Times, 'Rape expert: the witness they never call; Ray Wyre': "What Wyre knows about the distorted male mind is not pleasant. He learnt most, he says, from the four months he spent on a Churchill Fellowship in the United States with the FBI, studying the treatment of rapists and murderers and their victims. From that experience, he can say that he has seen everything including films of killings and mutilations which the murderers themselves took. Most of us, he says, are quite unaware of what actually is done to victims; we are protected from the horrible truth by the limits of what is printable."

⁶⁷

False [Abuse] Allegations Action Scotland: "Wyre’s opinions were further questioned regarding snuff videos. He is quoted as having viewed snuff films first hand in America. Apparently however, when contacted, he denied having seen one, and claimed that what he saw was instead a sophisticated simulation. Though he insists that the FBI did have such films in their possession and claimed that they were available in England, both the FBI and Scotland Yard dispute this." http://www.faascotland.co.uk/A%20live%20Wyre.htm

⁶⁸

April 8, 1997, The Toronto Star, 'Film alleges pedophiles killed boys': "Dutch police will be among the television viewers today of a British documentary that reports a pedophile ring in Amsterdam and nearby Hoofddorp videotaped the snuff deaths of homeless boys. It's not the first time Dutch police have heard the allegation, but investigations in 1990 and 1993 yielded no concrete result."

⁶⁹

April 6, 1997, The Mail on Sunday, 'Briton hunted over 'snuff movies'': "A British man is being hunted in connection with the suspected killing of young boys for so-called 'snuff movies'... Detectives, who identified John from pornographic videos seized in raids on the homes of sex offenders, were already searching for him... Three of the men have independently claimed direct knowledge of the production of paedophile 'snuff' movies, but all deny involvement. One told police that he saw five videos in which boys died after being sexually abused. He has identified a house in Hoofdorp, near Amsterdam, where he says some of the videos were made and has led police to a lake where he says he was told the bodies of the five boys were dumped."

⁷⁰

April 8, 1997, The Toronto Star, 'Film alleges pedophiles killed boys': "The British newspaper The Guardian on Saturday detailed one video known as the Bjorn Tape, allegedly made in Amsterdam in 1990, which begins with a man entering a room carrying the limp figure of a young boy, his hands tied and his head covered with a hood." Judging by the description of this movie, it could easily have been faked. It was later reported by British and Dutch sources that the boy in the tape was found alive.

⁷¹

June 29, 1997, Mail on Sunday, 'Outrage as snuff film pervert is free early': "The release of 32-year-old Warwick Spinks, who claims to have been involved in the murder of several children while making 'snuff' movies, has raised a storm of protest... It was a lurid confession from Spinks in an ITV documentary last April that sparked an investigation into the making of `snuff' movies in the Dutch town of Hoofddorp. In a conversation recorded by undercover police in Amsterdam, Spinks offered to supply a video in which a 10-year-old boy was killed, and said an associate had seen a boy die during the making of another film. Scotland Yard and Dutch police launched an inquiry which failed to find any evidence, but they are furious that Spinks, whose seven-year sentence was reduced to five on appeal, is being released so soon... Spinks was convicted of abducting a child, taking indecent photographs and a serious sexual assault in Feb-ruary 1995. His 14-year-old victim, described by Spinks as a rent-boy, had been on the run from a children's home in the North of England. Judge John Gower QC said Spinks had picked up the boy before taking a number of indecent photos during a gay sex session. Spinks later drugged his victim and took him to Amsterdam where he was sold to a homo-sexual brothel."

⁷²

November 27, 2000, The Guardian, ''Britain's paedophiles: When sex abuse can lead to murder: Award-winning journalist Nick Davies concludes a series looking at the evils of paedophilia by confronting the grim mysteries of snuff movies: Today: The Amsterdam connection'

⁷³

September 28, 2000, Aftonbladet (Sweden), 'Pedofil-företag mördade barn inför kamera' ('Pedophile company murdered children in front of camera'): "The Pedophile network had branched out over the whole world. But the center was located in Murmansk, in North Russia... At the same time it is revealed that several large financial companies are involved..." http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/0009/28/pedo.html

⁷⁴

October 1, 2000, The Observer, 'Special Investigation: British link to 'snuff' videos'

⁷⁵

September 28, 2000, Aftonbladet (Sweden), 'Pedofil-företag mördade barn inför kamera' ('Pedophile company murdered children in front of camera'): "The Pedophile network had branched out over the whole world. But the center was located in Murmansk, in North Russia... At the same time it is revealed that several large financial companies are involved... The Russian bosses in the organization so far revealed are these three: Dmitri Kuznetsov, 31, was arrested in Moscow in February, but was released shortly thereafter after the Russian parliament passed an amnesty law to reduce the number of internees. Valeri Ivanov, the one who is now in prison and who, himself, appears in many recordings where he torments young children. Andrej Valeri Minaev, formerly of the Soviet military, is the official owner of a company that primarily distributes TV video cassettes. He was also released after the amnesty... More than 1700 persons are suspected of having bought child pornography over the Internet...Eight of the arrested yesterday are Italians, but one is a Russian citizen. Of the Italians, one is a civil servant within the health care ministry, married without children. Another is a business leader, and a third is a civil servant in Milano. Irreproachable citizens whom no one would suspect... The pictures are unbearable for normal people to watch. Here are prolonged rape sequences with children begging to be spared. They are abused until they faint. Then they are murdered before the cameras... Yes, there are even scenes of actual autopsies on young people... In the 'product catalog' of the pedophiles were pictures of a 10-year-old girl who had been killed by hanging. A five-year-old girl with a grimace of pain as she is raped. An adult is killed by gradual crushing. The worst images are labeled 'necros pedo' and showed children being killed during abuse. Such cassettes sold for (US) $20,000. The arrested persons had specifically asked for assurances that the children actually were killed and that it was not simulated by trick photography... The scandal dominated the magazines and broadcasts on Thursday, after broadcasts with child pornographic pictures had been shown on TV during prime time. The opposition immediately demanded that the manager (Mr. Rais) of the state-owned TV company be dismissed. The matter was discussed in the chamber of deputies. " What has happened is absolutely unforgivable," said the leader of the opposition and the media boss Silvio Berlusconi, whose TV station chose not to show the images, according to Reuters. The newspaper La Republica devoted three pages to the operation, which has international branches. In an editorial, the competitor Corriere della Serra wrote that the extent of the affair is horrifying. "We could never have imagined that thousands of wealthy, cultivated people in the midst of society are taking pleasure in watching small children being tortured and killed." The special division of the police in Neapel for Internet-related crimes said that about 600 homes were searched in morning raids on Wednesday. According to the police, the key persons are three Russians who have kidnapped children from orphanages, amusement parks and [city] parks. Thereafter, the children were filmed as they were subjected to severe sexual abuse." http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/0009/28/pedo.html

⁷⁶

October 1, 2000, Associated Press, 'Director Quits Over Child Porn': "The news director of Italian state television's primary station resigned Sunday, taking the blame for allowing graphic images of child pornography to air in a prime-time report. The broadcast, seen by more than 7 million people, stunned the country. In the ensuing uproar, RAI-TV came under attack from the Vatican, the Parliament, the president, the prime minister, politicians on both the left and the right, family and child advocates and a host other news organizations." There were no details on what was actually shown, but it's hard to imagine actual uncensored snuff or hard rape extracts were aired.

⁷⁷

have not been able to find any news reports while going through the archives of many hundreds of US newspapers, including the New York Times and Washington Post. At the very least, the Russian pedophile and snuff ring has been severely underreported in the US.

⁷⁸

There were reports about the Morkhoven Workgroup's discovery in German, Dutch, Belgian, British and possibly other newspapers. Following is an excerpt from a British newspaper: July 18, 1998, The Independent, 'Dutch porn ring exploited two-year-olds': "Dutch Police were investigating allegations yesterday that an international child pornography ring exploited toddlers as young as two and distributed their images worldwide via the Internet... The inquiry follows a report by a Belgian anti-[child]pornography group, Morkhoven, that it found thousands of computer discs in a flat in the Dutch seaside town of Zandvoort. The discs were loaded with pornographic pictures of children, the Dutch current affairs television programme NOVA reported. Morkhoven showed some of the images to the programme makers, who decided they were too disturbing to broadcast. A spokeswoman for NOVA said that the correspondent responsible for the report was in contact with the Dutch police, and added that all the alleged evidence was with Morkhoven... But the Berliner Morgenpost which has closely followed the case, reported in April about accusations of sloppy work by German and Dutch police. After much public outcry, Berlin prosecutors met in late April with Marcel Vervloesem, a private detective with Morkhoven. Mr Vervloesem said he gave the police extensive evidence and the names of two previously unknown suspects."

⁷⁹

September 13, 1998, The Independent, 'No kind of hero; Marcel Vervloesem claims he cracked a child pornography ring. But should we believe him?': "Ulrich says he'll give Vervloesem more material when he gets back to Holland - he's got a secret store under the floorboards in his living room... Later he [Vervloesem] informs the police about the secret stash and on 28 June they return to the flat, carry out a thorough search, and find computer records under the floorboards, including a list of 300 names which is said to amount to an international Who's Who of suspected paedophiles. It includes Warwick Spinks, who was released from prison in Britain last July after being convicted of drugging and kidnapping a 14-year-old boy, and is now believed to be in Prague, and Lothar Gandolf, a notorious German paedophile."

⁸⁰

Ibid. 1) Zandvoort is near Hoofddorp and Amsterdam 2) Warwick Spinks allegedly was deeply involved in the British-Amsterdam abuse and snuff network.

⁸¹

Ibid. The Lothar Gandolf connection. Hoogwaardigheidsbekelders. *) February 9, 2003, www.stelling.nl, 'Van Estoril naar Zandvoort' ('From Estoril to Zandvoort'): "[Manuel Schadwald] would have worked for a while in a Rotterdam boys brothel of the now in Schiedam-living Lothar Gandolf, who also made "his" pupils available to all kinds of escort services. Not seldom to so-called men of standing." http://www.stelling.nl/followup/axel.html *) 2005, Werkgroep Morkhoven (their translation): "Native from Thüringen in Germany, he had a perfect landing place between the Polish border and Holland. He soon collected enough funds to purchase his first brothel, and settled in Rotterdam. Lothar developed a concept of child prostitution with triple convolution: he supplied customers of sadists and he resold the children according to their endurance, either with his fellow-members, or to the producers of pornographic imageries. It required an important bearing, which made the fortune of the children’s frontier runners and filled the “softer” brothels at the less risk for their directors. “When one arrives at the Polish border”, he said, “You just have to release the child before the bridge, ask him to cross by foot and collect him after the boarder”. Three children had succeeded to runaway from his brothel in 1993. At the police station as they were shown pictures, they had recognized Manuel Schadwald; 11 years old Berliner a whom, according to the German authorities, had runaway. Thus began an operation widespread in Europe and which consisted in finding the customers before saving the children. Three officers reported to have seen Lothar with a boy they believed to be Manuel but they had not intervened, as they were afraid to "endanger the operation". It took another eighteen months of tortures, rapes and kidnapping of runaway children, before the Dutch police released around fifty of them from Lothar’ brothel. Manuel was no more among them." http://groups.msn.com/WerkgroepMorkhoven/general.msnw?action=get_ message&mview=1&ID_Message=3003

⁸²

January 29, 2005, Jan Boeykens (chair of the Morkhoven Workgroup) in an article published on Indymedia: "It is possible that the Kennemerland police blocked the investigation, because at the time a videotape was found in the flat of Ulrich on which S., a contact of the Dutch royal house, could be seen. According to Bart van W. of 'Kleintje Muurkrant' S. also appeared in a case in which certain judicial people were involved with children. The information from this story closely matches with the things the Morkhoven Workgroup already found out in this area." http://www.stelling.nl/divers/boeykens.html

⁸³

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 390: "Only several years later it turns out that one floor above the cafe the post office box of a Dutch porn company is located. A completely innocent company, Antwerp detectives will conclude one year later. What they apparently don't know is that the name of the company later appears in the personal agenda of Robby van der Plancken, the Belgian who was brought in connection with the murder of his friend Gerrie Ulrich in the summer of 1998. In Holland this murder leads to the Zandvoort-scandal. In the apartment of a until then purportedly respectable citizen the police discovered more than 50,000 computer images of the most terrible forms of child abuse. Among the cd-roms of Ulrich there also are forms to 'order' children - baby's also, but in that case it's a bit more expensive. In the forms it is specified what the 'customer' can do with the child, how far he can go... In the Zandvoort-dossier there also are payment orders showing that Ulrich until just before his death regularly deposited large sums of money in the accounts of the porn company above cafe Les Routiers."

⁸⁴

May 3, 2004, Jan Boeykens for Werkgroep Morkhoven, 'Foto's Dutroux-slachtoffers in The Sprout' ('Pictures Dutroux-victims in The Sprout') http://groups.msn.com/werkgroepMorkhoven/youcanhelp1.msnw Also: April 19, 2004, Morkhoven Workgroup, 'The Sprout': "Several years ago a Belgian and a European member of Parliament could see a similar movie at the home of Marcel Vervloesem of the Morkhoven Workgroup. On the video one could see how a crying four year old girl was raped in the doctor's cabinet by a criminal dressed as a doctor, while a 12 year old girl had to play nurse and came in with the necessary instruments on a platter... The videos are very expensive (up to 30,000 euros a piece) and primarily find their way to pedocriminal networks." http://groups.msn.com/WerkgroepMorkhoven/thesproutnl1.msnw

⁸⁵

Details on the intimidation and "accident" of Gina Pardaens-Bernaer can be found in the following books: - 1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers' - 2004, Herwig Lerouge, 'Het Dossier Nihoul: De knoop in het proces-Dutroux' ('The Nihoul Dossier: The knot in the Dutroux trial') - 2004, Douglas De Coninck, 'Dode Getuigen - Dertig mensen die niet zullen spreken op het proces Dutroux ('Dead witnesses - Thirty people who will not speak at the Dutroux trial') *) Of course, the Morkhoven Workgroup has also discussed Pardaens' intimidation and death in detail.

⁸⁶

Ibid. More details can be found in the apparently assassinated appendix.

⁸⁷

2004, Herwig Lerouge, 'Het Dossier Nihoul: De knoop in het proces-Dutroux' ('The Nihoul Dossier: The knot in the Dutroux trial'), p. 192. According the author, Jean Denis Lejeune made this comment on ZDF (German) television on January 30, 2001. It appears to be a reference to the deaths of Francois Reyskens (1995) and Bruno Tagliaferro (1995) and his wife (1998). This comment is entirely plausible, because on other occasions the parents of Julie have claimed there's a cover up in the Dutroux affair.

⁸⁸

See 'the accused' appendix for a number of quotes, including the sources.

⁸⁹

Although child support institutions have tried to make estimates, there are no really reliable numbers on children being kidnapped or killed by individual pedophiles and networks. Of the hundreds of thousands of reported missing children in the West each year, only a small percentage is found dead or will go permanently missing. Still, this number amounts to thousands, and with so many child deaths' mislabeled and unreported, the existence of large abuse networks, including many temporary kidnappings, is entirely possible. In addition to the reports below, also take a look at references 38 and 41. *) July 1, 2001, The Independent, 'An invisible death': "In the six months from June to November last year - the months surrounding the deaths of Sarah Payne and Gwen Clapperton's daughter, Daniella Hurst - around 50 children in the UK were murdered, unlawfully killed or died in circumstances which subsequently required special investigation (a Part 8 Case Review) or will be the subject of a trial in the coming months. In July and August 2000 alone, there were over 20 cases of child murder or manslaughter. A handful of these cases had their brief moment of infamy - a photo, a headline with the word "tragedy" - but it's unlikely that you've heard of more than a couple . They're too mundane, too ordinary, to command attention." *) December 29, 2002, Sun-Sentinel: "Social workers cannot say how many of the youngsters who have slipped from their care have ended up dead. However, a national missing children's clearinghouse says 1,500 bodies of unidentified children lie in morgues or unmarked graves, many of whom, experts say, were likely foster children. Another 400 children nationwide, including some missing from state custody, have been gone for decades, raising fears that they, too, are dead. Deaths of missing children are difficult to count for a number of reasons. Overburdened police and social workers say they don't have time to round up runaways, caseworkers do not always file missing person reports when foster children disappear, privacy laws keep details of the children's deaths secret, computer and medical problems can thwart police and medical examiners working on missing children cases." *) 2006, Child Welfare Information Gateway, 'Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities: Statistics and Interventions' (US numbers): "The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) reported an estimated 1,490 child fatalities in 2004... Many researchers and practitioners believe child fatalities due to abuse and neglect are still underreported. Studies in Colorado and North Carolina have estimated that as many as 50 to 60 percent of child deaths resulting from abuse or neglect are not recorded as such." http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/fatality.cfm *) August 26, 2006, Daily Telegraph, 'How Natascha was robbed of her childhood' (this report is apparently referring to alleged long term kidnappings for sexual abuse): "Every year, thousands of children go missing without trace - 200 of them in Austria alone, a staggering 1,850 in Italy. In Belgium, where Marc Dutroux abducted and killed four female victims, 1,022 disappear annually; and in Britain, around 400. Experts fear that hundreds are being held in private prisons." Additionally, an example of a (thwarted) plan to temporarily kidnap, abuse and torture a young girl, and record this on video (for distribution?): *) May 16, 2007, VRT Nieuws, 'Parket rolt net op tijd pedofielenbende op' ('District attorney's office arrests a pedophile gang just in time): "The Belgian and French police have arrested four pedophiles who in our country wanted to kidnap an underaged girl to sexually abuse her, the district attorney's office confirmed. Four Frenchmen, three men and a woman, had built a cage in an abandoned company building near Rouen to lock up the girl. Next to the cage a camera stood ready, just as sadomasochist attributes. The suspects also had a van with fake license plates."

⁹⁰

1993, Jean-Pierre van Rossem, 'Hoe kom ik van de ground?' ('How do I get off the ground?'), p. 131

⁹¹

Ibid., p. 138-140

⁹²

Following are two brief examples of senior executives of Scotland Yard, Interpol and Europol being aware of the existence of large paedophile networks. *) August 25, 1996, The Observer, 'The Child Abusers: Paedophilia is not the preserve of a few sick individuals. It's a billion dollar business': "Bjorn Eriksson of Interpol believes there are 30,000 paedophiles organised in groups throughout Europe. Many are linked through the Internet, others are on the mailing-lists of pornographic magazines. Some are undoubtedly guilty of the kidnap, trade and murder of children. Scotland Yard's National Criminal Intelligence Service has a database of between 3,000 and 4,000 convicted or suspected paedophiles, many of whom will be part of the wider European network." *) Europol: May 15, 2003, The Times, 'Head jailed over internet paedophile ring': "The head teacher of a Roman Catholic boys' school who was a member of an international internet paedophile ring was jailed for more than five years yesterday... When the network was broken up in an operation involving the FBI, US Customs and Europol, police uncovered thousands of images described as the "worst type ever seen by the investigating officers". More than 80 children from around the world have been identified as victims of abuse as a result of the material, but many more remain unknown."

⁹³

*) PV 119.244, December 27, 1997 *) 1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 371-372

⁹⁴

*) PV 116.020, October 28, 1996. *) PV 151.511, May 14, 1997: "X1 signals that VdBogaert, Vander Elst, Bouty, Nihoul, Bert (Albert & Joost) and Emile Dellaert were present at the murder of Véronique Dubrulle. According to X1, the father is aware of the facts. Jacques Dubrulle is famous in the cinema milieu of Flanders."

⁹⁵

PV 116.026, November 13, 1996, 'Observation - Rape of X1 by Dr. de Schrijver': "Drs. de Schrijver and Waele signed the death certificate of Veronique Dubrulle (PV 116.020 rape and murder of Veronique)... Boss of UCO = Hanet... Description of the rape of X1 by only Schrijver when she was 14 years old (1983). Schrijver also raped Clo and Samy on other occasions. He participated in partouzes at the boss of UCO. Waele never raped her - he took girls of 7-8 years."

⁹⁶

PV 116.019, October 28, 1996, summary of claims made by X1: "Clo would have passed away between June and December '83."

⁹⁷

January 8, 1998, Annemie Bulté and Douglas de Coninck for De Morgen (large Belgian newspaper), 'The girl who gave birth in secret' (translated to English by someone from the Radical party website, and-or possibly the authors): "Thanks to research carried out at "Clo’s" school, the BSR investigators managed to guess who she was. After that, BSR officers Patrick De Baets and Philippe Hupez showed XI a series of class photos from the year 1981-82. XI not only pointed to the photos of Carine Dellaert, but also to another photo. According to XI, it was V. (she gave her first name). She added: "They killed her, too. Clo told me that she was called V." During questioning on 25 October, statement no. 116.018, XI said: "This happened in a house in Ghent. Clo was there, too […] They tortured her with knives and scissors. Someone broke a bottle and rubbed the fragments into her vagina. Then they cut her in various places with razor-blades." After this session of questioning, they no longer knew where they were at the 3rd Criminal Research Section. From a series of twenty photos, XI had managed to pick out two girls who had died shortly afterwards. After further research, the investigators not only came across the old file on the murder of Carine Dellaert, but also information concerning the second young girl. She was, in fact, called V., and had died in the middle of 1983 in Ghent. As regards the list of people present according to XI, some of the details were remarkable. As well as Michel Nihoul and a woman who was arrested in the Dutroux case, XI named her procurer T., the lawyer and the burgomaster mentioned above, and a businessman from western Flanders and his son. XI could not establish any links between all these people, except the fact that she had met them on various occasions at orgies. The investigators carried out research which showed that all the people present had professional links of one sort or another, links that were not apparent at first sight. The name of the man she indicated as Clo’s "procurer" was also remarkable. He had already appeared as a suspect in the old file at the Ghent Public prosecutor’s department. The man was known to the police for a series of sexual crimes."

⁹⁸

*) March 11, 2003, Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part I' *) On Laminaria: Medilator company information: "There are two techniques currently in use for dilation of the cervix, laminaria and Hegar rods. The laminaria (seaweed) technique involves insertion of a dry rod into the cervix. Contact with body fluids causes the laminaria to swell ensuing dilatation of the cervical canal." http://www.ofek.org.il/eng/graduate_projects.php?p_id=25

⁹⁹

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 170: "Apparently because a row had arisen about the fact that he had taken all her belongings, Emile Dellaert later brought back one of the closets of his daughter to the mother. To her great astonishment she noticed there was maternity clothing in it."

¹⁰⁰

March 18, 2003, Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part II', at about 24:30

¹⁰¹

*) 1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulte and Douglas De Coninck, 'The X-Dossiers', 493-494: "In his official report first sergeant Jan Vincent of the BOB Gent extensively mentions the small wall that clearly isn't there. That it's about a bungalow surrounded by a garden, that he has to acknowledge. X1 also talked about 'some sort of artificial pond, but not a natural pond, a fairly square thing'. That pond, she noted, went around the bungalow like a moat. About the house she said: 'Yes, such a square thing, a kind of brick. With a small fountain.' Vincent has to admit that the pond is there, but then - we cite literally: 'This moat has more of a natural than an artificial look. The water certainly is not a square thing and bricks or a fountain are nowhere to be found.' Strange is that. One inspector says white, the other one says black. What do we do then? We went to take a look ourselves, of course. What turns out? The house in Waarschoot is mostly surrounded by a pond which is as square as square can be. Because of the sprouting of trees and bushes, bumps can be found in the straight line that was intended during construction, but if you keep in mind that X1 said that she had been here in 1983, it is hard not to conclude that the moat then must have formed a perfect square. The house, as any passer-by can determine, certainly has been built with bricks. And what is that there in middle of the garden, right in front of the front door? A fountain! At least a 3 feet high fountain. It might not be a real fountain - no water is coming out - but a white garden sculpture that can even be seen from 100 yards away can impossibly be seen as something else than a fountain." *) February 25, 2004, Herwig Lerouge and Vinciane Convens, Solidaire, interview with Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck: "We were sued several times. Gendarme officer Vincent of the CBO in Gent was one of them. He for instance allowed that an investigation that had been opened in response to testimonies of Regina Louf, was closed. According to him, the house that Regina Louf described did not match at all the house he had visited himself. Regina described an artificial pond and he said it was a natural pond and that the description of Regina therefore was not accurate. In the end, the court decided in our favor and said that our investigation was better than his. That is written black on white. We proved that the house Regina Louf described indeed matches the house that he visited. We even found back the plans for the construction of the artificial pond."

¹⁰²

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulte and Douglas De Coninck, 'The X-Dossiers', p. 435: "Also in the Waarschoot-passage the re-readers alter reality. They state that the house in Waarschoot in 1982 was inhabited 'by persons who have nothing to do with the dossier'. Strange. Anyone who knows the dossier a little, knows that the house next door in the early 1980s was inhabited by the parents of... witness X4."

¹⁰³

These details are largely described in the book 'The X-Dossiers' and followed up upon by the Zembla X-dossiers investigation in part II.

¹⁰⁴

See the 'the victim-witnesses' appendix for biographies on Gerard Cok and Charles Geerts.

¹⁰⁵

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté, and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-dossiers', p. 501-502: "Let's call her Fanny V. It took us two phone calls to find her. Few have known Carine Dellaert as well as she did. They were classmates in the school years 1977-78 and 1978-79 in the town school Gezusters Loveling in the Van Hulthemstraat in Gent. 'We became friends in sixth grade', Fanny says. 'I was eleven or twelve then, Carine thirteen, I believe. What I can tell you, dates from that period.' Fanny has to chuckle when she hears about the conclusions of the District Attorney's office in Gent. In the official reports it is reported that her friend was a hardworking pupil which never had any troubles at home. 'In any case she was a year older than the rest of the class', Fanny says. 'She already had failed one of the lower classes. I looked up to her a lot. I was still a child, she a real woman. She was physically and mentally so much stronger than we. When my mother heard that she had become my best friend, she went to complain about that with the school's management. Because I had said to my mother that Carine regularly had sex with her father and also with other men. 'No, Carine was not happy, not at all. On the playground we sometimes sat silently next to each other the whole time. I felt she was suffering immensely under the situation. She wanted to run away from home, she often spoke about that: "Run away, far away from here." 'She told me that she had to sleep with many men... As far as Fanny remembered, Carine Dellaert told her that this primarily happened at her home. I was still a child, didn't understand anything and didn't ask more questions. What I do remember is that her mother knew nothing about this. I used to ask that all the time: and how about your mother, what does she think? She's always gone, she said...' After the lower school, in 1979, Fanny V. lost contact with Carine Dellaert. 'I never saw her again.' She [Fanny] went to another school and got to know other people there. One of them - we are not making this up - was Regina Louf. 'Regina talked to almost no one', Fanny continues. 'If Regina and Carine knew each other? To me that seems perfectly possible. Regina also had her secret, she was very introvert. If Regina and Carine knew each other through such a circuit it would have been hard for me to find out. At school you only saw the facade. I thought that you could compare them, their attitudes. I have bought the book of Regina, but I'm afraid to read it. I have wanted to start a few times, but there are things in there... it hurts me too much.'"

¹⁰⁶

Ibid., p. 503: "The first childhood friend of Regina Louf who is interviewed in the summer of 1997 is Kristelle M. [PV 103.011, September 1, 1997, BOB Gent, officer Jan Vincent]. She was in the same class in the years 1983-84 and 1984-85... '[Regina] sometimes disappeared from school in the afternoon', Kristelle remembered. If it is true what this woman says, then the re-readers of the dossier Van Hees can fold a boat from the absence register that they saw as 'proof' that Regina Louf impossibly could have been in Brussels in the early evening of February 13, 1984. What Kristelle M. remembered above all, is that she continually talked about sex. She told how she had a relationship with 'an older man'. According to M., the whole class assumed that she was lying. Not Kristelle M. She had seen with her own eyes how this 'older man' picked up Regina after school. And there was something else: Regina at some point told her that she was pregnant of that older man. Kristelle M. also knew that Regina often spoke about a 'female friend with whom she could amuse herself and with whom she often went out in the Boudewijnstraat'. She didn't remember the name of the friend anymore, 'but it could have been Christine, Carine, Caroline or Claudine'. Kristelle M. could also tell that Regina, as a kid of 14, drank alcohol and one morning arrived in class and 'smelled of liquor'. One time she arrived at school with a clearly visible bruise..."

¹⁰⁷

1998, Regina Louf, 'Zwijgen is voor daders - De getuigenis van X1' ('Silence is for perpetrators - The testimony of X1'), p. 288: "Several days later I came to know that Clo - who, according to the District Attorney's office in Gent maybe never existed and certainly was not Carine - also had classmates who called her Clo. One of them confirms that only very few people knew her under that name, and that she believed me the minute she heard me talk about 'Clo'. Also the description I gave of her was correct. Months later an older woman came to me, who confirmed that another victim I had named had indeed died under suspicious circumstances."

¹⁰⁸

Emile Dellaert's past is largely described in the book 'The X-Dossiers' and in various newspaper reports.

¹⁰⁹

February 18, 1997 note from De Baets to prosecutor Michel Bourlet about PVs 100.071 and 150.099, which were interviews with X1 about Katrien De Cuyper.

¹¹⁰

PV 150.359, March 1, 1997.

¹¹¹

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté, and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-dossiers', p. 390: "The peculiar thing about the W. family [de Caters] is that they also own property in Knokke-Le Zoute, in the streets where X1 already went to point out houses several months before."

¹¹²

March 18, 2003, Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part II': "[Patricia van der Smissen, lawyer of Regina Louf:] It was observed that he phoned this person more than ten times on a day that he was observed. Maybe he noticed that he was being shadowed. In any case, he often called this gendarme officer. We also know that they were in contact over the internet. And from one day to the next this person is put on the case, after it had already been known that he was in contact with Tony... [BOB officer Rudy Hoskens of De Baets' investigating team:] Then you start asking yourself a few questions, wouldn't you? Then this is not the right person in the right place. I did complain about this to my superiors, but this person kept serving on the same dossier."

¹¹³

June 22, 1999, De Morgen, 'Is dit Katrien De Cuyper?' ('Is this Katrien De Cuyper'): "On page 17 and under number 129 of the second special edition of the Dutch police magazine Research and Information there's a picture of a girl who strongly resembles Katrien De Cuyper... Members of the Morkhoven Workgroup came in the possession of the second edition of Research and Information and handed over copies to the Brussels judicial police, where the Computer Crime Unit will further analyze the picture. 'We also have showed that picture 129 to different persons who know the De Cuyper dossier very well or have known the girl personally', Marcel Vervloesem says. 'We got to hear the same thing again and again: this is Katrien De Cuyper.'"

¹¹⁴

These details are described in the book 'The X-Dossiers' and the 2003 Zembla X-dossiers investigation, part II.

¹¹⁵

Werkgroep Morkhoven, 'Katrien De Cuyper: Loog de Antwerpse justitie in deze zaak?': "Interesting in this case is that Leen Nuyts, spokesperson of the Antwerp district attorney's office, at the time reacted in the following manner to the announcement of Marcel Vervloesem: 'Two weeks ago we received from the Dutch justice department a picture which indeed closely resembles Katrien. We have investigated it. We are now for 95 percent sure that that picture shows a still-to-be-identified boy'. Shortly afterwards a picture was published in a certain newspaper which had to show (through the genitals) that the picture on the Zandvoort cd-rom indeed was a 'boy'. Investigative work done by the Morkhoven Workgroup in the mean time showed that it was a photoshop in which the face of Katrien De Cuyper was superimposed on a boys' body. After a scientific investigation in which advanced computer techniques were used, one is able to state with 95% certainty that the by Marcel Vervloesem rediscovered picture indeed shows Katrien De Cuyper."

¹¹⁶

March 18, 2003, Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part II', at about 24:30

¹¹⁷

PV 104.898, April 23, 1998, as filmed in March 18, 2003, Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part II', at about 19:20: "During this hearing, V. acknowledged - after a long talk - the intimate and sexual relation he had with Regina Louf. According to him, it was Regina who took the initiative." A more detailed statement can be found in the 1999 book 'The X-Dossiers', p. 513, including: "At a certain point I indeed had been given a key of the house by Christiane, outside the knowledge of her husband, so I could enter the apartment whenever I wanted."

¹¹⁸

Unknown PV as filmed in March 18, 2003, Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part II', at about 20:00: "In the end, Christiane confirmed that Regina indeed has had a sexual relationship with Tony... She confirmed that she under pressure of Regina had given a key of the house to Tony."

¹¹⁹

PV 100.466, February 6, 1998, as filmed in March 18, 2003, Zembla (Dutch TV), 'De X-dossiers - Part II', at about 19:50: "After an open discussion Georges Louf admitted that Tony stopped by much more than he had earlier testified... that she went out with him, that Tony went to pick her up at school." A more detailed statement can be found in the 1999 book 'The X-Dossiers', p. 508.

¹²⁰

PV 150.106, February 4, 1997, 'hearing of de Marleen van Herreweghe': "There were sexual contacts in the living room between Tony, X1, her mother and the housekeeper... The female housekeeper was a certain Carine who had 4 children. Carine and Tony gave van Herreweghe the impression that her presence bothered them."

¹²¹

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté, and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-Dossiers', p. 347-348.

¹²²

Ibid., p. 340-341

¹²³

PV 116.799, November 6, 1996, 'Designation of places by X2 in Knokke: "The facts happened in villas around Knokke. There's a similarity with the places designated by X1... "Scarsdale" Blinckaertlaan 19 in the Koningbos... Maison Binnenhof 9 or 11 or 13 (not certain)... Elizabethlaan 62... X1 had also designated the Scarsdale villa and the Binnenhof houses. The Tinel hotel and the house of the grandmother of X1 are located facing the Elizabethlaan 62."

¹²⁴

When one goes through the Dutroux dossier summary one can read: PV 114.037, September 29, 1996, 'Audition de X1': "She recognizes X2 on a photo. X2 was a victim of pedophile acts right in front of her... She recognizes X2 on photo. She saw her in a club in Brussels with Nihoul. She has been tortured in this club." In this PV X1 identifies several other girls and locations from pictures, but Nathalie W. is nowhere to be found. The problem then is that the authors of 'The X-Dossiers' (p. 143) have cited X1 from the full PV as saying: "Ik have seen here there... with Nihoul in Brussels, yes. But I don't know more than that either. [Abused,] not that I noticed. [so there appears to be a difference between descriptions of X2 and Nathalie]." The authors continue: "The photo they showed her is a childhood picture of Nathalie W., the first victim who came to Neufchateau to testify about the existence of influential child abuse networks in Belgium. Nathalie accused Michel Nihoul of having raped her three times when she was still a kid. She saw him, she says, a number of times in the sexclub Les Atrebates. X1 situated her in the 1982-'83 period. It wouldn't happen often that X1 was correct about a date, but this time apparently she was. At that point, she had never come across Nathalie W. in the buildings of the BOB, she couldn't have seen her. And even if that would have happened, it is very much the question, if this would have helped her. There are few, in any, similarities between the Nathalie W. of today and the more than 15 years old picture." That X1 recognized Nathalie W. seems accurate (PV 150.521). The only question is if the author of the summary has mixed up X2 with Nathalie W. Officially, X2 would not begin to testify until November 1996, but sometime in September or October her immediate superior, Michel Clippe (who worked on the Dutroux case), and Bourlet had already found out that she came from an abuse network. So, it could be that they showed a picture of X2 to X1 in an early to see if they could get some quick verifications. What further complicates this case is that X2 also was familiar with Nihoul and the Dolo. PV 118.379, December 12, 1996, 'Interview with X2 - Brabant-Wallon': "X2 regularly went to the Dolo where she met Bouhouche. X2 also met the wife of Bouhouche in the Hilton at the time of a meeting between [Jean] Gol, Philippe Moureaux, Wilfried Martens, VDB, Willy de Clerck, Jean-Michel Nihoul, Delvoye and Karel."

¹²⁵

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulte and Douglas De Coninck, 'The X-Dossiers', p. 435. See note #102.:

¹²⁶

PV 118.575, December 14, 1996, 'Identification of Nathalie Cannoodt by X4': "Presentation of a photo album. X4 recognizes a girl who played in pedophile movies and photo sessions. The girl in question taught X4 a card game. The recognized girl is Nathalie Cannoodt." *) PV 118.576, December 14, 1996, 'Identification of Chantal Storme by X4': "Presentation of a photo album. X4 recognizes a girl who played in pedophile movies and photo sessions... The recognized girl is Chantal Storme."

¹²⁷

PV 150.521, March 10, 1997, 'Discordances in the declarations of Waeterschoot': "Waet. recognizes the mother of X4 and gives her first name as well as one of her sisters."

¹²⁸

PV 100.526, January 9, 1997, 'First interview with Nathalie Cannoodt': "Between her 10th and 14th year her best friend was X1. She went on vacation several times to the grandmother in Knokke. She was forbidden to go to the first floor. The grandmother was very strict... X1 had told her to be in love with Tony, as she saw it. She remembers to have gone to the Decascoop [a cinema] with X1 and Tony in a Mercedes. The mother of X1 was in love with Tony. [Nathalie] broke down in tears when she spoke of her father caressing her chest." *) PV 100.528 January 11, 1997, 'Second interview with Nathalie Cannoodt': "When Tony brought her to the Decascoop with X1, she saw that he kissed X1 and that he stroked her breasts and vagina."

¹²⁹

PV 150.521, March 10, 1997, 'Discordances in the declarations of Waeterschoot': "She [Nathalie W.] is recognized by X1 and X4."

¹³⁰

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulte and Douglas De Coninck, 'The X-Dossiers', p. 143: "Ik have seen her there... with Nihoul in Brussels, yes. But I don't know more than that either. [Abused,] not that I noticed." The authors continue: "The photo they showed her is a childhood picture of Nathalie W., the first victim who came to Neufchateau to testify about the existence of influential child abuse networks in Belgium. Nathalie accused Michel Nihoul of having raped her three times when she was still a kid. She saw him, she says, a number of times in the sexclub Les Atrebates. X1 situated her in the 1982-'83 period. It wouldn't happen often that X1 was correct about a date, but this time apparently she was. At that point, she had never come across Nathalie W. in the buildings of the BOB, she couldn't have seen her. And even if that would have happened, it is very much the question if this would have helped her. There are few, in any, similarities between the Nathalie W. of today and the more than 15 years old picture." Why did I use "allegedly"? See note #124.

¹³¹

PV 150.521, March 10, 1997, 'Discordances in the declarations of Waeterschoot': "The father of Waet. is recognized by X1."

¹³²

PV 116.063, November 2, 1996, 'Interview with Waterschoot': "Presentation of two photos to Wat. She doesn't recognize the girl (X1). She recognizes the man as Anthony. [Indeed] It's is about Anthony Van Den Bogaert." *) 1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulte and Douglas De Coninck, 'The X-Dossiers', p. 312, quoting from PV 116.063: "This is Anthony, a friend of Nihoul" *) PV 150.521, March 10, 1997, 'Discordances in the declarations of Waeterschoot': "She speaks of an Anthony that she puts in relation with Nihoul and X1."

¹³³

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulte and Douglas De Coninck, 'The X-Dossiers', p. 312: "Later on a discussion will arise if Nathalie that day really spoke about 'Mich from Brussels'. It is certain, however, that after the arrest of Michel Nihoul it is matter of days before every report dealing with Nathalie W. is transferred to the district attorney's office in Neufchateau. 'It was Joël who called me with the question if 'Mich' was Nihoul. Yes, I said. I had recognized him immediately on television. I didn't see him as the most important person. He was there in the period of the Atrebates street, when I was fifteen to sixteen years. That was all.'"

¹³⁴

PV 150.459, February 25, 1997: 'Analysis and observations after 14/02/97 interview with Storme': "She was the best friend of X1. She regularly went to the grandmother of X1. Description of the house. When there were certain customers she could not go to the first floor and had to be inconspicuous and silent. When the customers went up there, they didn't have any luggage.... Grandmother hard on X1; has been seen threatening X1 with a revolver." *) PV 150.817, March 20, 1997, 'Constatations of interview with Storme on 25/02/97': "She remembers to have undergone the abuse in the grandmother's house... The facts always took place in the same two rooms... The grandmother saw to it that she obeyed the customers well... The men who raped them called them whores... and forbade them to cry... One of the perpetrators was called Monsieur... She remembers two positions for the anal penetrations, which she describes... She was forced into homosexual relations with X1. She has assisted in a rape of X1."

¹³⁵

1999, Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, Annemie Bulté, and Douglas De Coninck, 'De X-dossiers', p. 503-504: "Anja D. is also interviewed. She has been pointed out by a number of former classmates as the best friend that Regina had in the years 1984 and 1985... [Anja in PV 103.387, September 25, 1997, to the BOB in Gent:] 'You show me a picture which I recognize as showing Tony, being the older man with whom X1 had a sexual relationship... I only got knowledge of this relationship during the fact that I often went to the house of X1. I went to sleep at least one weekend per month at X1's... It sometimes happened that Tony went up with X1 to the room of the mother of X1. There they had sexual intercourse. Tony could arrive at any moment. It so happened that Tony could arrive very late in the evening. I myself determined that there was sexual intercourse between X1 and Tony. It is so that the room of X1 was right next to the room of the mother. It happened that I was still sleeping when Tony had sex with X1 at that moment in the next room... I went past the room, and the door was open. Then I conclusively saw the sexual intercourse between X1 and Tony. By the way, at one time Tony asked me if I didn't want to join them. I declined.... Pertaining to the reaction of the parents of X1, it is true that both knew about the relationship. The father absolutely was aware of the relationship, but wrapped himself in silence... It sometimes happened that Tony was gone with X1 the whole afternoon, sometimes also a short while. X1 never told me where they had been... In my opinion the relationship between this man and X1 had already been going on for quite some time... I think she absent more than the average pupil, but it couldn't be called 'a lot'."

¹³⁶

Ibid., p. 503: "The first childhood friend of Regina Louf who is interviewed in the summer of 1997 is Kristelle M. [PV 103.011, September 1, 1997, BOB Gent, officer Jan Vincent]. She was in the same class in the years 1983-84 and 1984-85... '[Regina] sometimes disappeared from school in the afternoon', Kristelle remembered. If it is true what this woman says, then the re-readers of the dossier Van Hees can fold a boat from the absence register that they saw as 'proof' that Regina Louf impossibly could have been in Brussels in the early evening of February 13, 1984. What Kristelle M. remembered above all, is that she continually talked about sex. She told how she had a relationship with 'an older man'. According to M., the whole class assumed that she was lying. Not Kristelle M. She had seen with her own eyes how this 'older man' picked up Regina after school. And there was something else: Regina at some point told her that she was pregnant of that older man. Kristelle M. also knew that Regina often spoke about a 'female friend with whom she could amuse herself and with whom she often went out in the Boudewijnstraat'. She didn't remember the name of the friend anymore, 'but it could have been Christine, Carine, Caroline or Claudine'. Kristelle M. could also tell that Regina, as a kid of 14, drank alcohol and one morning arrived in class and 'smelled of liquor'. One time she arrived at school with a clearly visible bruise..."

¹³⁷

Ibid., p. 501-502 (also see note #105): "Let's call her Fanny V. It took us two phone calls to find her. Few have known Carine Dellaert as well as she did... 'If Regina and Carine knew each other? To me that seems perfectly possible. Regina also had her secret, she was very introvert. If Regina and Carine knew each other through such a circuit it would have been hard for me to find out. At school you only saw the facade. I thought that you could compare them, their attitudes. I have bought the book of Regina, but I'm afraid to read it. I have wanted to start a few times, but there are things in there... it hurts me too much.'"

¹³⁸

1998, Regina Louf, 'Zwijgen is voor daders - De getuigenis van X1' ('Silence is for perpetrators - The testimony of X1'), p. 167-168 & 287-288.

¹³⁹

Ibid., p. 280

• © 2009 Joël van der Reijden

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