--- category: Belgium Scandals created: 2026-04-28 relations: - end: 2003 fn: 3 role: judge start: 1995 type: appointed with: '[[Court of Justice of the European Communities]]' summary: Belgian minister of justice who signed Marc Dutroux's conditional release in 1992 over the Mons prosecutor-general's objection, held responsible by the 1997 commission; European Court of Justice judge, 1995-2003. tags: - Person - Belgium - Dutroux updated: 2026-09-22 --- Melchior Wathelet, of the Christian Social Party, was Belgium's minister of justice when, on April 6, 1992, he signed the ministerial order granting [Marc Dutroux](/people/marc-dutroux/) conditional release. On April 26, 1989, the Court of Appeal of Mons had sentenced Dutroux to terms of ten years, three years and six months for the rape of children and minors and the sequestration of five young girls. The prosecutor-general of Mons, Demanet, had given a negative opinion, writing that granting such clemency "at a time when rape and assaults on elderly people are denounced as a social scourge would go against the imperatives of repression and the needs of public safety and would be likely to discredit the work of justice."[^2] The parliamentary commission of inquiry into the Dutroux affair, which heard Wathelet in 1997 as "judge at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, former minister of justice," found that while the files on the conditional release of [Michelle Martin](/people/michelle-martin/) and Dutroux appeared to have been prepared in the usual way, their follow-up had been wholly inadequate, and that "the responsibility of the minister of justice of the time, Mr. Wathelet, must be retained"; it attributed to the prosecutor's office of Charleroi the failure to inform the minister on three occasions of facts that could have led to the release being revoked.[^2] Dutroux abducted [Julie Lejeune](/people/julie-lejeune/) and [Melissa Russo](/people/melissa-russo/) on June 24, 1995.[^2] Wathelet was a judge of the European Court of Justice from 1995 to 2003.[^3] ### Accusations in the X-Dossier In the [X-Dossier](/events/x-dossier/), compiled under Judge [Jean-Marc Connerotte](/people/jean-marc-connerotte/) and Prosecutor [Michel Bourlet](/people/michel-bourlet/), the witness [Regina Louf](/people/regina-louf/) (X1) accused Wathelet of raping her as a child at parties organized by [Jean-Michel Nihoul](/people/jean-michel-nihoul/) and at sadomasochistic events on the estates of [Count Leopold Lippens](/people/count-leopold-lippens/) and [Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin](/people/baron-benoit-de-bonvoisin/) and at villas in [Knokke-Heist](/places/knokke-heist/) near the [Royal Zoute Golf Club](/places/royal-zoute-golf-club/), and identified him from photographs; the writer S. Dovey wrote that X2 placed him at events near Chimay. Dovey also wrote that the dossier linked him with [Paul Vanden Boeynants](/people/paul-vanden-boeynants/) and the Lippens family through the Christian Social Party and its backers at the [Societe Generale de Banque](/organizations/societe-generale-de-banque/), and with parties filmed for blackmail. Dovey further linked the allegations to [Operation Gladio](/programs/operation-gladio/) stay-behind networks and wrote that prison reports had warned against Dutroux's release. Wathelet denied the accusations, attributing them to political rivals. He was never charged, and the X-witnesses were not heard at the 2004 trial.[^1] [^1]: Dovey, S. *Eye of the Chickenhawk.* Thehotstar, 2023. It describes Wathelet as minister of the interior from 1988 to 1995 under Prime Minister Vanden Boeynants, which the commission's description of him as former minister of justice contradicts, and dates his European Court judgeship from 1999, contradicted by the commission's description of him as a sitting judge in 1997. Its birth year, 1951, is not repeated. Sole source for the passages so cited. [^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, list of persons heard, conclusions on the Julie and Melissa file, and tables 3 and 4; translated from the French. https://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/49/0713/49K0713006.pdf [^3]: Court of Justice of the European Communities, *Annual Report,* list of former members: "Melchior Wathelet, Judge (1995-2003)."