--- born: 1948 category: Key Figures created: 2026-04-28 location: Neufchâteau, Belgium relations: - end: 1996-10 fn: 2 role: investigating judge, Neufchâteau start: 1996-08 type: investigated with: '[[Marc Dutroux]]' summary: Neufchâteau investigating judge who freed Sabine Dardenne and Laetitia Delhez in August 1996, opened the hotline that led to witness X1, and was removed from the Dutroux file in October 1996. tags: - Person - Belgium - Dutroux updated: 2026-09-22 --- Jean-Marc Connerotte was the investigating judge at Neufchâteau in the file on the abduction of [Laetitia Delhez](/people/laetitia-delhez/), taken at Bertrix on August 9, 1996. [Marc Dutroux](/people/marc-dutroux/), his wife [Michelle Martin](/people/michelle-martin/) and [Michel Lelievre](/people/michel-lelievre/) were arrested on August 12; on August 15 Dutroux confessed, and on his directions Laetitia and [Sabine Dardenne](/people/sabine-dardenne/) were found alive in the cellar of his house at Marcinelle. The bodies of [Julie Lejeune](/people/julie-lejeune/) and [Melissa Russo](/people/melissa-russo/) were found at Sars-la-Buissière on August 17.[^2] The parliamentary commission noted that Connerotte and the Neufchâteau prosecutor, [Michel Bourlet](/people/michel-bourlet/), preferred to work directly with the investigators rather than through the command of the investigation unit, in contrast to the more formal practice of his successor.[^3] ### The Hotline and X1 After the girls were freed, Connerotte opened a free telephone line for witnesses of child abuse and people with information on Dutroux and his associates. A Dutch-speaking woman called to say that a friend knew a great deal about grave abuse of children; the gendarme Patrick De Baets, who was in Connerotte's office to report on his financial investigation of Dutroux's assets, took the call because of the language. The caller, Tania, was a friend of the witness later known as X1, [Regina Louf](/people/regina-louf/); the call was the starting point of the so-called connected files. A special unit of the Brussels criminal investigation brigade (BSR) under De Baets was set up to question X1. One of her accounts led the investigators to the unsolved 1984 murder of [Christine Van Hees](/people/christine-van-hees/).[^4] ### Removal In October 1996, after what became known as the "spaghetti ruling" of the Court of Cassation, Connerotte was replaced as investigating judge by Jacques Langlois. Shortly before he was removed, he opened a second telephone line for information on sexual abuse of children; whether Langlois ever acted on what it produced was still without a precise answer in 2000.[^4] In June 1997 the Brussels investigating judge [Jean-Claude Van Espen](/people/jean-claude-van-espen/), who held the Van Hees file, suspended all investigative acts by the team re-examining it.[^5] ### The X-Witnesses After a public appeal by Connerotte in September 1996, eight witnesses gave testimony alleging abuse by members of the elite, compiled as the [X-Dossier](/events/x-dossier/) under Bourlet. The testimony described orgies and murders at villas in [Knokke-Heist](/places/knokke-heist/) near the [Royal Zoute Golf Club](/places/royal-zoute-golf-club/), at the brothel of X1's grandmother [Cecile Beernaert](/people/cecile-beernaert/) at Elizabetlaan 83 frequented by [Paul Vanden Boeynants](/people/paul-vanden-boeynants/), and at estates of [Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin](/people/baron-benoit-de-bonvoisin/), [Count Leopold Lippens](/people/count-leopold-lippens/) and [Count Maurice Auguste Lippens](/people/count-maurice-auguste-lippens/). The team matched X1's account of Van Hees's murder to unpublished details, and her account of a friend, "Clo," to the 1983 death of [Carine Dellaert](/people/carine-dellaert/), identified through a yearbook, whose autopsy found laminaria sticks and gauze. X2 named de Bonvoisin, [Jean-Paul Dumont](/people/jean-paul-dumont/) and Lippens at sadomasochistic events near Chimay; X3 described abuse at royal castles between 1950 and 1962; X4 identified pornographic films featuring X1's friends. X2 also described orgies at the Mirano club attended by Princes Philippe and Laurent. The dossier mapped politicians of the Christian Social Party backed by the [Societe Generale de Banque](/organizations/societe-generale-de-banque/), and described Dumont as representing [CRIES](/organizations/cries/), which used [UNICEF](/organizations/unicef/) in the production of pornography through [Joseph Douce](/people/joseph-douce/) and [Michel Caignet](/people/michel-caignet/)'s [Gaie France](/organizations/gaie-france/); X1 described hunts and snuff films at [ASCO Industries NV](/organizations/asco-industries-nv/), owned by [Roger Boas](/people/roger-boas/). A 2005 summary of the file, later leaked through WikiLeaks, described 300 tapes, some featuring members of the elite. The accused were linked to [Operation Gladio](/programs/operation-gladio/) networks, and one of them, [Melchior Wathelet](/people/melchior-wathelet/), sat on the European Court of Justice. The investigation followed [Jean-Michel Nihoul](/people/jean-michel-nihoul/)'s parties, more than twenty calls between Nihoul and Dutroux around Laetitia's abduction, vans of Nihoul's company [ASCO](/organizations/achats-services-commerces/), and some 300 violent pornographic tapes seized from Nihoul's home. It examined the 1991 disappearance of [Katrien de Cuyper](/people/katrien-de-cuyper/) and the X-Kiss studio, linked through [Gerrit-Jan Ulrich](/people/gerrit-jan-ulrich/) and [Robbie Van Der Plancken](/people/robbie-van-der-plancken/) to Zandvoort, and a list compiled by Serge Heylens that included [Beat Meier](/people/beat-meier/), [Edward Brongersma](/people/edward-brongersma/) and [Philippe Carpentier](/people/philippe-carpentier/) of CRIES; after a note signed "Anubis" was found in [Bernard Weinstein](/people/bernard-weinstein/)'s cabin, the [Abrasax Institute](/organizations/abrasax-institute/) was raided and found to include police members. More than twenty witnesses died in the period, among them [Gina Pardaens-Bernaer](/people/gina-pardaens-bernaer/) in 1998, after identifying Dutroux-linked material on [Apollo Disks](/concepts/apollo-disks/). Connerotte was cleared of bias in 1999; in 2004 he testified that contracts had been taken out on the lives of magistrates, who needed bulletproof vehicles. The dossier was leaked and published in 1999 as *De X-dossiers.*[^1] [^1]: Dovey, S. *Eye of the Chickenhawk.* Thehotstar, 2023. Sole source for the passages so cited; the underlying X-witness material is Bulté, Annemie, Douglas De Coninck and Marie-Jeanne Van Heeswyck, *De X-dossiers: wat België niet mocht weten over de zaak-Dutroux,* Houtekiet, 1999. Its date for Dutroux's arrest (August 13, 1996) and its placing of the bodies of An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks at Sars-la-Buissière are contradicted by the commission's chronology and by the reports of their recovery at Jumet on September 3, 1996. [^2]: Chambre des Représentants de Belgique. *Enquête parlementaire sur la manière dont l'enquête, dans ses volets policiers et judiciaires, a été menée dans l'affaire Dutroux-Nihoul et consorts,* rapport, Doc. 713/6-96/97, April 18, 1997, chronology of August 1996; translated from the French. https://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/49/0713/49K0713006.pdf [^3]: Chambre des Représentants de Belgique. *Enquête parlementaire...,* rapport complémentaire, Doc. 713/8-96/97, February 16, 1998, chapter V. https://www.dekamer.be/kvvcr/pdf_sections/comm/dutroux/49K0713008.pdf [^4]: Sénat de Belgique. Proposition visant à instituer une commission d'enquête parlementaire chargée d'enquêter sur l'éloignement de deux enquêteurs de la cellule d'enquête bruxelloise « Neufchâteau », déposée par M. Frans Lozie, Doc. 2-563/1, October 9, 2000, développements; translated from the French. [^5]: As cited on the Christine Van Hees page (Doc. 713/8-96/97, chapter V).