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Les dossiers X : Ce que la Belgique ne devait pas savoir sur l'affaire Dutroux
Marc Dutroux was een geïsoleerde pervert, Michel Nihoul is het slachtoffer van een gerechtelijke dwaling en elke getuige die het tegendeel durft te beweren is gek. Met dat dwangmatige beeld tracht het Belgische politiek-justitiële establishment nu al een jaar lang het vertrouwen van de burger terug te winnen. Hoe anders is de werkelijkheid?
In de dagen en de weken voor 's lands hoogste rechtscollege hem vanwege een bord spaghetti wegstuurde, opende rechter Jean-Marc Connerotte een reeks nieuwe onderzoeken naar banden tussen de bende Dutroux en de georganiseerde misdaad. Ondanks een overvloed aan concrete sporen, materiële indicaties en bewezen verbanden, is elk van die onderzoeken voortijdig stilgelegd. Na Connerotte werden in alle stilte ook zijn meest gemotiveerde speurders uitgerangeerd. Over kindermisbruik getuigende vrouwen werden met een beangstigende systematiek verdacht gemaakt.
De meest elementaire vragen uit het gerechtelijke dossier blijven tot vandaag zonder antwoord. Waar haalde X 1 haar punctuele kennis over kindermoorden? Wat is er écht gebeurd met Julie en Mélissa? Waarom werden de onderzoeken tegen Michel Nihoul van binnen de politiediensten zelf gehinderd? Wie was de mysterieuze pedofiele zakenman waarmee Marc Dutroux contacten onderhield? Waar is de videocollectie van kinderverkrachter Jean-Paul Raemaekers gebleven? Waarom werden er miljoenen besteed aan bij voorbaat zinloze graafwerken in Jumet en werden ernstige sporen niet verder onderzocht?
Ex-justitieminister Stefaan De Clerck (CVP) noemde de publicaties over de geheime nevendossiers van Neufcháteau een 'dijkbreuk'. Voortbouwend op deze beeldspraak, is Verboden onderzoek de zondvloed. Het is de meest door authentieke gerechtelijke stukken ondersteunde reconstructie van de zaak Dutroux die ooit verscheen.
In de dagen en de weken voor 's lands hoogste rechtscollege hem vanwege een bord spaghetti wegstuurde, opende rechter Jean-Marc Connerotte een reeks nieuwe onderzoeken naar banden tussen de bende Dutroux en de georganiseerde misdaad. Ondanks een overvloed aan concrete sporen, materiële indicaties en bewezen verbanden, is elk van die onderzoeken voortijdig stilgelegd. Na Connerotte werden in alle stilte ook zijn meest gemotiveerde speurders uitgerangeerd. Over kindermisbruik getuigende vrouwen werden met een beangstigende systematiek verdacht gemaakt.
De meest elementaire vragen uit het gerechtelijke dossier blijven tot vandaag zonder antwoord. Waar haalde X 1 haar punctuele kennis over kindermoorden? Wat is er écht gebeurd met Julie en Mélissa? Waarom werden de onderzoeken tegen Michel Nihoul van binnen de politiediensten zelf gehinderd? Wie was de mysterieuze pedofiele zakenman waarmee Marc Dutroux contacten onderhield? Waar is de videocollectie van kinderverkrachter Jean-Paul Raemaekers gebleven? Waarom werden er miljoenen besteed aan bij voorbaat zinloze graafwerken in Jumet en werden ernstige sporen niet verder onderzocht?
Ex-justitieminister Stefaan De Clerck (CVP) noemde de publicaties over de geheime nevendossiers van Neufcháteau een 'dijkbreuk'. Voortbouwend op deze beeldspraak, is Verboden onderzoek de zondvloed. Het is de meest door authentieke gerechtelijke stukken ondersteunde reconstructie van de zaak Dutroux die ooit verscheen.
- GenresTrue Crime
Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 5, 2021
Wie me volgt weet dat ik heel erg zuinig omspring met het toekennen van 5 sterren maar dit lijvige boek verdiend dit zeker. Het is meeslepend, boeiend en erg goed geschreven. Alhoewel het gerechtelijke procedures en onderzoeken betreft heeft het mij niet 1 keer doen indommelen; integendeel zelfs ik vond het vaak moeilijk om weg te leggen. Hoe verder je vordert in het boek hoe harder je gaat denken en de zin 'Kan dit ? of 'Hoe is dit mogelijk?' vormt. X1 - Regina louf komt natuurlijk ter sprake. En dat het boek niet weg gelegd is voor gevoellige lezers moet ik ook niet vertellen sommige dingen zijn ronduit gruwelijk en soms redelijk gedetailleerd beschreven. Het eind besluit ? Spreek ik mij niet over uit. Heb ik zelf een mening gevormd acht ik de dingen voor mogelijk die de schrijvers aanhalen ? Het enige antwoord dat ik kan en wil geven Ik ben van oordeel dat het boek een waarheidsgetrouwe weergave is van de feiten. En om een oordeel of menig te hebben moet je het zeker lezen.
July 1, 2025
(I read Philip Mertens' machine-aided English translation.)
At around a quarter million words (in the English translation; 539 small-font pages in the Dutch original), this is an impressively hefty, meticulously sourced, and ambitious undertaking to expose the distortion of truth in the police investigation into the Dutroux affair and the X witnesses. The book carefully documents how investigators who pursued leads that suggested a large network behind Dutroux were stifled, disciplined, fired, thwarted, tarnished in the press, etc. while those responsible for this subterfuge enjoyed wide-ranging press and media support.
Painstakingly going through what must have been tens of thousands of pages of police reports, faxes, letters, transcripts, newspaper reports, interviews, and more, this trio of intrepid journalists (or 'pitbulls', as Walter de Bock was sometimes described) has managed to tear apart the official story of the X witnesses with the forensic precision of the likes of Norman Finkelstein with Joan Peters. Chasing leads that the police didn't, they discover many pieces of information that collectively inflict a metaphorical 'death by a thousand cuts' on the official story.
Narrative-wise, there is occasionally some confusion (or, more precisely, serious effort required to keep track of everything) as timelines are not always linear, and many characters appear, disappear for a while, and reappear in later chapters. An overall timeline or other visualization (with names, police hierarchies, etc.) would have been very useful to keep track of the mountains of information, especially for those not familiar with the Belgian judicial system (let alone the history of Belgian parapolitics). Fortunately, we have Joël van der Reijden's work as a complement.
The pithy conclusion is surprisingly bathetic (to put it mildly) and easily the worst part of the book: after having drawn a massive spiderweb of connections pointing towards a coverup at the highest level, the authors claim that such a theory is 'the last of their hypotheses' and that they instead blame corporatism and cronyism. Did they write this in an attempt to save face and reduce the (real) backlash they would receive following the publication of this book? Or are they just genuinely naïve (read: politically immature)? I don't know. But my suggestion is: get your facts here and your politics elsewhere. While the level of detail employed to assiduously debunk the so-called 'rereadings' of X witness testimonies is commendable and impressive (even unassailable, to be more direct), a similar analysis of the alleged perpetrators' network(s) is needed to complete the picture (indeed, the authors even deny the existence of such a network, and the relative dearth of 'naming names' betrays their stance of rejecting an institutional cover-up). Joël van der Reijden is as good a place as any to start filling the gaps, and from there one can go to David Teacher and the relevant scholars cited by him (e.g., Johannes Großmann, Klaartje Schrivers, etc.). This is not an indictment of the book per se (it is already a reasonably fat book), just a warning that it is only one piece of the puzzle.
To conclude with more mundane minutiae: there is the occasional typographical error (e.g., Ceferino Alvarez's and Rufin Nachtergaele's first names are misspelt), but overall the writing quality is consistently high. Many names that are anonymized or semi-anonymized (by way of initials) in the book have since been revealed by Wikileaks and other sources; here is a non-exhaustive list for the benefit of future readers: GD = Gustaaf Derdijn, CV = Carine Verniers, Aziza EM = Aziza El Moatassim, C (relative of Patrick Derochette) = Marc Corbeels, X (owners of Castle Kattenhof in 's Gravenwezel) = (Patrick) de Caters family, Ingrid K = Ingrid Koval, Michel P = Michel Petre, Fabienne K = Fabienne Kirby, LV = Lucien Vial, Joseph DR = Joseph De Ruyt, Lawyer E. = Michel Vander Elst. Furthermore, the appearance of several new books and memoirs by key participants in the affair (on 'both sides', so to speak), such as Michel Nihoul, Aimé Bille, or Marc Toussaint, as well as further investigations by the likes of Jean Nicolas or Herwig Larouge, show that the book (in spite of the authors' admission in the conclusion that it 'came too late') is in need of updating. Here's hoping for a properly revised and updated official English translation to release soon!
At around a quarter million words (in the English translation; 539 small-font pages in the Dutch original), this is an impressively hefty, meticulously sourced, and ambitious undertaking to expose the distortion of truth in the police investigation into the Dutroux affair and the X witnesses. The book carefully documents how investigators who pursued leads that suggested a large network behind Dutroux were stifled, disciplined, fired, thwarted, tarnished in the press, etc. while those responsible for this subterfuge enjoyed wide-ranging press and media support.
Painstakingly going through what must have been tens of thousands of pages of police reports, faxes, letters, transcripts, newspaper reports, interviews, and more, this trio of intrepid journalists (or 'pitbulls', as Walter de Bock was sometimes described) has managed to tear apart the official story of the X witnesses with the forensic precision of the likes of Norman Finkelstein with Joan Peters. Chasing leads that the police didn't, they discover many pieces of information that collectively inflict a metaphorical 'death by a thousand cuts' on the official story.
Narrative-wise, there is occasionally some confusion (or, more precisely, serious effort required to keep track of everything) as timelines are not always linear, and many characters appear, disappear for a while, and reappear in later chapters. An overall timeline or other visualization (with names, police hierarchies, etc.) would have been very useful to keep track of the mountains of information, especially for those not familiar with the Belgian judicial system (let alone the history of Belgian parapolitics). Fortunately, we have Joël van der Reijden's work as a complement.
The pithy conclusion is surprisingly bathetic (to put it mildly) and easily the worst part of the book: after having drawn a massive spiderweb of connections pointing towards a coverup at the highest level, the authors claim that such a theory is 'the last of their hypotheses' and that they instead blame corporatism and cronyism. Did they write this in an attempt to save face and reduce the (real) backlash they would receive following the publication of this book? Or are they just genuinely naïve (read: politically immature)? I don't know. But my suggestion is: get your facts here and your politics elsewhere. While the level of detail employed to assiduously debunk the so-called 'rereadings' of X witness testimonies is commendable and impressive (even unassailable, to be more direct), a similar analysis of the alleged perpetrators' network(s) is needed to complete the picture (indeed, the authors even deny the existence of such a network, and the relative dearth of 'naming names' betrays their stance of rejecting an institutional cover-up). Joël van der Reijden is as good a place as any to start filling the gaps, and from there one can go to David Teacher and the relevant scholars cited by him (e.g., Johannes Großmann, Klaartje Schrivers, etc.). This is not an indictment of the book per se (it is already a reasonably fat book), just a warning that it is only one piece of the puzzle.
To conclude with more mundane minutiae: there is the occasional typographical error (e.g., Ceferino Alvarez's and Rufin Nachtergaele's first names are misspelt), but overall the writing quality is consistently high. Many names that are anonymized or semi-anonymized (by way of initials) in the book have since been revealed by Wikileaks and other sources; here is a non-exhaustive list for the benefit of future readers: GD = Gustaaf Derdijn, CV = Carine Verniers, Aziza EM = Aziza El Moatassim, C (relative of Patrick Derochette) = Marc Corbeels, X (owners of Castle Kattenhof in 's Gravenwezel) = (Patrick) de Caters family, Ingrid K = Ingrid Koval, Michel P = Michel Petre, Fabienne K = Fabienne Kirby, LV = Lucien Vial, Joseph DR = Joseph De Ruyt, Lawyer E. = Michel Vander Elst. Furthermore, the appearance of several new books and memoirs by key participants in the affair (on 'both sides', so to speak), such as Michel Nihoul, Aimé Bille, or Marc Toussaint, as well as further investigations by the likes of Jean Nicolas or Herwig Larouge, show that the book (in spite of the authors' admission in the conclusion that it 'came too late') is in need of updating. Here's hoping for a properly revised and updated official English translation to release soon!
April 11, 2023
Must-read, shockerend in verschillende opzichten.
February 3, 2024
Interessant boek , zeker de moeite waard.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews