Elizabeth Vos
Consortium News
Elizabeth Vos reviews the infamous legal case of Marc Dutroux and why it engendered public distrust in the institutions of government.
This is the fourth article in a series that is looking back on the major works of the publication that has altered the world since its founding in 2006. The series is an effort to counter mainstream media coverage, which is ignoring WikiLeaks' work, and is instead focusing on Julian Assange's personality. It is WikiLeaks' uncovering of governments' crimes and corruption that set the U.S. after Assange and which ultimately led to his arrest on April 11. In this article by Consortium News contributor Elizabeth Vos, originally published by her in 2017 on Disobedient Media, Vos looked at how WikiLeaks helped uncover evidence that showed Belgian case was part of a politically-protected child sex trafficking network. The Belgian case takes on added relevance in the wake of the arrest of financier Jeffery Epstein for alleged sex trafficking of children with allegations of Epstein's connections to powerful intelligence agencies.
The case of notorious homicidal pedophile Marc Dutroux, now serving a life sentence in Belgium, is infamous for the deep depravity of the crimes that were committed and witnessed. Evidence emerged twice in the case, first in legal proceedings, secondly by the publication of many of the prosecution's records by WikiLeaks in 2009.
The case was marked by the extreme suppression of evidence in what many have called a coverup perpetrated by the Belgian establishment. The episode is a definitive example of the exposure of deep judicial and political corruption leading to widespread public distrust in the legitimacy of their institutions of government. This sentiment has been echoed most recently in the U.S., where the primary rigging in 2016 by the Democratic National Committee left many feeling that the rule of law has come to mean little in the face of an utterly corrupt establishment that has become unaccountable to the public.
The Dutroux scandal set a precedent of mass public protest in response to such abuses, evident last year (2016) in South Korea's response to the scandal surrounding President Park Geun-hye and her advisor Choi Soon-Sil.
It took the better part of a decade for the Belgian legal system to convict Marc Dutroux in 2004 for the mid-1990s kidnapping and rape of six girls, four of whom were murdered. The case was infamous for an inexplicably high number of mysterious deaths, suppression of evidence by the police, and numerous accounts from witnesses of extreme abuse perpetrated by a well-connected, violent pedophile ring.
The case prompted roughly 300,000 Belgians to take to the streets in 1996 in solidarity with the victims in "The White March," where protesters adopted a color that in Belgium is a sign of hope.
The Dutroux Affair left such deep scars on the consciousness of the Belgian population that roughly one third of Belgians who shared the surname Dutroux with the accused had their names legally changed. Despite the case having been legally concluded, many years later it is apparent that numerous significant elements of the important case remain unresolved.
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Consortium News
Elizabeth Vos reviews the infamous legal case of Marc Dutroux and why it engendered public distrust in the institutions of government.
This is the fourth article in a series that is looking back on the major works of the publication that has altered the world since its founding in 2006. The series is an effort to counter mainstream media coverage, which is ignoring WikiLeaks' work, and is instead focusing on Julian Assange's personality. It is WikiLeaks' uncovering of governments' crimes and corruption that set the U.S. after Assange and which ultimately led to his arrest on April 11. In this article by Consortium News contributor Elizabeth Vos, originally published by her in 2017 on Disobedient Media, Vos looked at how WikiLeaks helped uncover evidence that showed Belgian case was part of a politically-protected child sex trafficking network. The Belgian case takes on added relevance in the wake of the arrest of financier Jeffery Epstein for alleged sex trafficking of children with allegations of Epstein's connections to powerful intelligence agencies.
The case of notorious homicidal pedophile Marc Dutroux, now serving a life sentence in Belgium, is infamous for the deep depravity of the crimes that were committed and witnessed. Evidence emerged twice in the case, first in legal proceedings, secondly by the publication of many of the prosecution's records by WikiLeaks in 2009.
The case was marked by the extreme suppression of evidence in what many have called a coverup perpetrated by the Belgian establishment. The episode is a definitive example of the exposure of deep judicial and political corruption leading to widespread public distrust in the legitimacy of their institutions of government. This sentiment has been echoed most recently in the U.S., where the primary rigging in 2016 by the Democratic National Committee left many feeling that the rule of law has come to mean little in the face of an utterly corrupt establishment that has become unaccountable to the public.
The Dutroux scandal set a precedent of mass public protest in response to such abuses, evident last year (2016) in South Korea's response to the scandal surrounding President Park Geun-hye and her advisor Choi Soon-Sil.
It took the better part of a decade for the Belgian legal system to convict Marc Dutroux in 2004 for the mid-1990s kidnapping and rape of six girls, four of whom were murdered. The case was infamous for an inexplicably high number of mysterious deaths, suppression of evidence by the police, and numerous accounts from witnesses of extreme abuse perpetrated by a well-connected, violent pedophile ring.
The case prompted roughly 300,000 Belgians to take to the streets in 1996 in solidarity with the victims in "The White March," where protesters adopted a color that in Belgium is a sign of hope.
The Dutroux Affair left such deep scars on the consciousness of the Belgian population that roughly one third of Belgians who shared the surname Dutroux with the accused had their names legally changed. Despite the case having been legally concluded, many years later it is apparent that numerous significant elements of the important case remain unresolved.
Read more
See also:
