The Pedophocracy, Part I: From
Brussels...
By David McGowan, August 2001
From our comfortable seat in life . we
never could have imagined that thousands of well-off adults, integrated
and even cultured, find pleasure in seeing children tortured and
killed."
From a front-page editorial in Italy's
Corriere della Sera, reprinted in The Irish Times,
September 29, 2000
"British detectives are trying to close
a website showing pictures of a man eating a dismembered baby . the
website, based in California . has been linked with the ritual abuse of
children . A second website showing similar scenes of sadistic and
ritualistic abuse has been successfully shut."
Independent, February 21, 2001
"Paedophiles can boldly and
courageously affirm what they choose... I am also a theologian and as a
theologian, I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and
intimacy, unity of flesh, between people... paedophiles can make the
assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose.
With boldness, they can say, 'I believe this is in fact part of God's
will'."
Ralph Underwager, 'expert' witness for the
defense in scores of child abuse cases and former vocal member of the
False Memory Syndrome Foundation, in an interview in Paidika (a
pro-pedophilia publication), conducted in June 1991
To
the vast majority of Americans, the name Marc Dutroux does not mean
much. Drop that name in Belgium though and you are likely to elicit some
very visceral reactions. Dutroux - convicted along with his wife in 1989
for the rape and violent abuse of five young girls, the youngest of whom
was just eleven - now stands accused of being a key player in an
international child prostitution and pornography ring whose practices
included kidnapping, rape, sadistic torture, and murder.
Dutroux was sentenced in 1989 to thirteen
years for his crimes, but was freed after having served just three. This
was in spite of the fact that, as prison governor Yvan Stuaert would
later tell a parliamentary commission: "A medical report described him
as a perverse psychopath, an explosive mix. He was an evident danger to
society." The man who turned Dutroux loose on society, Justice Minister
Melchior Wathelet, was rewarded with a prestigious appointment to serve
as a judge at the European Court of Justice at The Hague.
Shortly after Dutroux's release, young
girls began to disappear in the vicinity of some of his homes. Though
technically unemployed and drawing welfare from the state, he
nevertheless owned at least six houses and lived quite lavishly. His
rather lucrative income appears to have been derived from trading in
child sex-slaves, child prostitution, and child pornography. Many of his
houses appeared to stand vacant, though at least some of them were in
fact used as torture and imprisonment centers where kidnapped girls were
taken and held in underground dungeons. Some of Dutroux's homes were
used in this way for several years following his early release, with a
growing body of evidence to indicate that fact to the police.
Authorities nevertheless failed to act on the information, or acted on
it in ways that implied either complete incompetence (according to most
press reports), or police complicity in the operation (according to any
sort of logic).
Officials seem to have routinely ignored
tips that later proved accurate, including a report from Dutroux's own
mother that her son was holding girls prisoner in one of his houses. In
addition, key facts were withheld from investigators working on the
disappearances and lines of communication were unaccountably broken,
inexcusably hindering the investigation. Police did search one of
Dutroux's homes on no less than three separate occasions over the course
of the investigation. On at least two of those occasions, two of the
missing girls were being held in heinous conditions, imprisoned in a
custom-built dungeon in the basement. Nevertheless, according to the Guardian, the police searches came up empty - even though the
investigating officers reported "hearing children's voices on one
occasion."
It was not until August 13, 1996, four
years after the disappearances began, that authorities arrested Dutroux,
along with his wife (an elementary school teacher), a lodger, a
policeman, and a man the Guardian described as "an associate
with political connections" - elsewhere identified as Jean-Michel
Nihoul, a Brussels businessman and nightclub owner. One of those taken
into custody - Michel Lelievre, described in a May 2002 BBC
report as a "drug addict and petty thief" - reportedly told his
interrogators that at least some of the girls abducted by the ring "were
kidnapped to order, for someone else." This was just one of many
statements by suspects and witnesses that would later be dismissed by
Belgian officials.
Two days after the arrests, police again
searched Dutroux's home and discovered the soundproof dungeon/torture
center. As CNN reported, three years earlier "police ignored
tips from an informant who said Dutroux was building secret cellars to
hold girls before selling them abroad." In addition, in 1995, the same
informant had told police that Dutroux had offered an unidentified third
man "the equivalent of $3,000 to $5,000 to kidnap girls." Incredibly, it
was later reported by the Guardian that police actually had in
their possession a videotape of the dungeon being constructed: "Belgian
police could have saved the lives of two children [who were] allegedly
murdered by the paedophile Marc Dutroux if they had watched a video
seized from his home which showed him building their hidden cell." The
tape had been seized in one of the earlier searches.
At the time of the final search, two
fourteen-year-old girls were found imprisoned in the dungeon, chained
and starving. They described to police how they had been used as child
prostitutes and in the production of child pornography videos. More than
300 such videos were taken into custody by the police.
On August 17, 1996, the story got grimmer
as police dug up the bodies of two eight-year-old girls at another of
Dutroux's homes. It would later be learned that the girls had been kept
in one of Dutroux's dungeons for nine months after their abductions,
during which time they were repeatedly tortured and sexually assaulted -
all captured on videotape. The girls were then left to slowly starve to
death. Alongside of their decimated corpses was the body of Bernard
Weinstein, a former accomplice of Dutroux who had occupied one of the
houses for several years. Weinstein had been buried alive.
A few weeks later, two more girls were
found buried under concrete at yet another of the Dutroux properties. By
that time, ten people connected to the case were reportedly in custody.
As the body count mounted, the outrage of the Belgian people grew. They
demanded to know why this man, dubbed the 'Belgian Beast,' had been
released after having served such an absurdly short sentence. And they
demanded to know why, as evidence had continued to mount and girls had
continued to disappear, the police had chosen to do nothing. How many
girls, they wanted to know, had been killed due to this inaction?
Adding further fuel to the fire, as a
Los Angeles Times report revealed, were claims by "a highly
regarded children's activist, Marie-France Botte . [that] the Justice
Ministry is sitting on a politically sensitive list of customers of
pedophile videotapes." The same report noted, "the affair has become
further clouded by the discovery of a motorcycle that reportedly matches
the description of one used in the 1991 assassination of prominent
Belgian businessman and politician Andre Cools. Michel Bourlet, the head
prosecutor on the pedophile case, meanwhile, has publicly declared that
the investigation can be thoroughly pursued only without political
interference. Several years ago, Bourlet was removed from the highly
charged Cools case, which remains unsolved."
A report in Time magazine alluded
to murky links between the Dutroux operation and organized crime
figures. Marc Verwilghen - the chief investigating magistrate on the
case - stated the case more bluntly: "For me, the Dutroux affair is a
question of organised crime." Also mentioned in the Time
article was the use of secret "underground tunnels," not unlike those
described by children a decade earlier at the infamous McMartin
Preschool.
Outrage continued to grow as more arrests
were made and evidence of high-level government and police complicity
continued to emerge. One of Dutroux's accomplices, businessman
Jean-Michel Nihoul, confessed to organizing an 'orgy' at a Belgian
chateau that had been attended by government officials, a former
European Commissioner, and a number of law enforcement officers. A
Belgian senator noted, quite accurately, that such parties were part of
a system "which operates to this day and is used to blackmail the highly
placed people who take part."
According to the BBC, Nihoul has
brazenly claimed: "I am the monster of Belgium." He has all but dared
the state to prosecute him, claiming that he is beyond the reach of the
law because he has information that, if made public, "would bring the
Government and the entire state down."
In September 1996, twenty-three suspects -
at least nine of whom were police officers - were detained and
questioned about their possible complicity in the crimes and/or their
negligence in investigating the case. As the Los Angeles Times
noted in a very brief, two-sentence report, the detainments "were the
latest indication that police in the southern city of Charleroi may have
helped cover up the alleged crimes of Marc Dutroux." The arrests
followed raids on the police officers' homes and on the headquarters of
the Charleroi police force and were based on information supplied by
police inspector Georges Zicot, who had already been charged as an
accomplice. Three magistrates had also reportedly been interrogated by
police investigators.
Just days before the arrests, police had
also arrested five suspects in the Cools assassination, including a
former regional government minister named Alain VanderBiest. Strangely
enough, the News Telegraph reported that: "Police investigating
the Cools murder in 1991 . have been given helpful leads by some of
those arrested in the Dutroux case." The Telegraph also noted
that Cools "had promised 'shocking revelations' before his death."
On October 14, 1996 came the straw that
broke the camel's back: Jean-Marc Connerotte, who had been serving as
the investigating judge on the Dutroux case, was dismissed by the
Belgian Supreme Court. Connerotte was viewed by the people as something
of a rarity: a public official/law enforcement officer who actually
appeared to be pursuing a prosecution, rather than a cover-up. The
News Telegraph described him as: "the only figure in the judiciary
who enjoys the nation's confidence." As the New York Times
reported, Connerotte "became a national hero in August after saving two
children from a secret dungeon kept by a convicted child rapist and
ordering the inquiry that led to the discovery of the bodies of four
girls kidnapped by a child pornography network." He had also arrested
three men in 1994 as suspects in the Cools assassination - just before
the case was transferred to the jurisdiction of another magistrate.
A May 2002 BBC report revealed
that, after Connerotte's removal, a "special team of police officers
interviewing Regina Louf and the other 'X' witnesses, as they were
called, were the next to be sacked." The "X" witnesses were victims of
the pedophile ring who had come forward to tell harrowing tales of their
victimization.
A woman named Regina Louf was the first of
eleven such victims to be interviewed by police officials. Louf claimed
that she had been victimized by the ring - which included her parents
and her grandmother - from the time that she was a very young child. She
described the operation in detail to authorities, supplying them with
names - names that included "senior judges, one of the country's most
powerful politicians - now dead - and a very influential banker."
According to Louf, the operation "was big business - blackmail - there
was a lot of money involved." Many of her victimizers, she said, were
secretly filmed for blackmail purposes.
Louf identified Michel Nihoul as a regular
organizer of 'parties.' These parties, she said, "not only involved sex,
they included sadism, torture and murder." She described in detail the
murdered victims, and how and where they were killed. The BBC
reported that when police checked into Louf's claims, they were able to
verify "key elements of Regina's story and found [that] at least one
murder that she says she witnessed matched an unsolved murder."
Nevertheless, the same BBC report revealed that, "today in
Belgium Regina Louf's reputation is destroyed. The Prosecutor General of
Liege, Anne Thilly, declares she's completely mad despite numerous
statements from independent psychologists to the contrary." According to
the judges now on the case, "her testimony has been declared worthless"
and will not be presented in any trial of Dutroux or his associates.
Connerotte's removal from the Dutroux case
fanned the smoldering flames of public outrage; as the Times
reported, "Hundreds of thousands of people had petitioned the high court
to retain the judge." Adding yet more fuel to the fire, prosecutor
Michel Bourlet was claiming that evidence indicated a pedophile ring,
composed of the wealthy and powerful, had been protected for twenty-five
years. With the families of Dutroux's victims calling for a general
strike, men and women all across the country walked away from their jobs
in protest as railway workers and bus drivers shut down public
transportation, bringing some cities to a virtual standstill. The Telegraph reported that, "in Liege, firemen turned their hoses on
the city's court building" to symbolize the massive clean-up that was in
order.
On October 20, 1996, 350,000 citizens of
the tiny nation of Belgium took to the streets of Brussels dressed all
in white, demanding the reform of a system so corrupt that it would
protect the abusers, rapists, torturers, and killers of children. The
political fallout from the case ultimately brought about the resignation
of Belgium's State Police Chief, Interior Minister, and Justice
Minister, who became sacrificial lambs tossed to the outraged masses to
avoid what could easily have exploded into a full-scale insurrection by
the people, particularly after police 'incompetence' allowed Dutroux to
'escape' and remain at large for a brief time in April 1998.
There were in fact calls from the people
for the entire coalition government to step down. Months later, an
opinion survey by Brussels' Le Soir newspaper found that only
one in five Belgians still had confidence in the federal government and
in the nation's criminal justice system. As the Los Angeles Times
reported in January 1998, "the conviction remains stubbornly widespread
that members of the upper crust - government ministers, the Roman
Catholic Church, the court of King Albert II - belonged to child sex
rings, or protected them."
Victimized
as a child by top-level perpetrators who today claim she is insane. The
detail of Regina's testimony is extraordinary. In 1996, she named and
described in great detail, to a specially assembled police team, the
people and places involved in the paedophile ring. Senior judges, one of
the country's most powerful politicians - now dead - and a very
influential banker were included. One of the regular organisers of these
parties, she said, was the man she knew as 'Mich', Jean Michel Nihoul.
The sessions not only involved sex, they included sadism, torture and
murder; and again, she described in detail, the place, the victims and
how they were killed. She also claimed the young Marc Dutroux was there.
"At these parties Nihoul was a sort of party beast while Dutroux was
more on the side." SEE VIDEO CLIPS ON THE "BELGIAN X-FILES"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent_europe/1962244.stm
The lingering distrust of the people was
not alleviated by the fact that a parliamentary inquiry had identified,
in April 1997, thirty officials who had, as the Times tactfully
put it, "failed to uncover Dutroux's misdeeds." Nearly a year later,
none of them had yet suffered any repercussions. Additionally, at least
ten missing children suspected of having fallen prey to Dutroux's
operation have never been found.
Just a few months before the parliamentary
commission issued its report on the Dutroux case, viewed by many as a
shameless cover-up, the Telegraph reported, "grim rumors . have
been circulating that a second paedophile network at least as appalling
may have been operating in parallel to that said to involve Dutroux."
The bodies of seven children were believed to have been hidden by the
ring, which was thought could be linked to Dutroux through Michel
Nihoul. Two months after that, a man named Patrick Derochette and three
of his family members were arrested following the discovery of the body
of a nine-year-old girl.
Rumors quickly began circulating linking that
crime to Dutroux as well. Like Dutroux, Derochette had previously been
convicted on multiple counts of child rape. He had been committed to a
psychiatric institution from which he was released after just six weeks.
Authorities quickly denied that there was any connection between the
cases. In January 1998, however, the Telegraph reported, "new
evidence from a lawyer involved in the investigations blows a hole in
previous police claims that there was no link between the cases
involving the alleged child murderers Marc Dutroux and Patrick
Derochette." Once again, the connection was said to be through Nihoul.
In April 1999, the Guardian
weighed in with this report: "the highly respected chairman of a
parliamentary inquiry into the [Dutroux] case claims that his
commission's findings were muzzled by political and judicial leaders to
prevent details emerging of complicity in the crimes . Mr. Verwilghen
claims that senior political and legal figures refused to cooperate with
the inquiry. He says magistrates and police were officially told to
refuse to answer certain questions, in what he describes as 'a
characteristic smothering operation.'"
As of May 2002, nearly six years after
Dutroux was taken into custody, his trial had yet to begin. Parents of
victims continued to loudly shout of a cover-up, and the Telegraph
was reporting that: "It was recently learnt that scientific tests on
6,000 hairs found in the [underground dungeon] began only this year."
Those tests, of course, could reveal how many victims passed through
Dutroux's chamber of horrors. Perhaps more importantly, they could also,
as a BBC News report noted in January 2002, "establish whether
the girls had any other visitors."
Anne Thilly, the aforementioned Prosecutor
General of Liege who dismissed as "mad" a key prosecution witness, has
been quoted as saying, "there was no need to get the hairs analysed as
no one else entered the cage. There was no network so there was no need
to look for evidence of one. In any case, the hairs have all now been
analysed." Thilly gave no indication of how she knew there was nothing
to find before even bothering to look. And contrary to her claims, the
BBC reported in May 2002 that the hairs had "still not been
analysed," according to "sources central to the investigation." Thilly
has also claimed "the bodies [recovered from Dutroux's properties] were
too decomposed to test for DNA."
The BBC though noted "the
autopsy states quite clearly that the bodies were not decomposed.
Samples were taken. It is just that no one seems to know what has
happened to the results." It would appear, alas, as though Anne Thilly
is a rather brazen liar.
The January BBC report came on the
heels of an interview that the imprisoned Dutroux granted a Flemish
journalist and a Belgian senator. Therein, Dutroux was quoted as
admitting, "a network with all kinds of criminal activities really does
exist. But the authorities don't want to look into it." He also
acknowledged the existence of "a well-grounded [paedophile] ring. I
maintained regular contact with people in this ring. However, the law
does not want to investigate this lead."
If the Marc Dutroux case were some kind of
aberration, it would still be a disturbing story for the level of
unspeakable corruption and depravity of the Belgian political and law
enforcement establishment of which it speaks. Far more disturbing is the
fact that it does not appear to be an isolated case at all.
As 1999 drew to a close, the nation of
Latvia was rocked by a child prostitution/child pornography scandal that
reached to the very top of the political power structure. The case first
broke in August, when police uncovered a massive operation involving as
many as 2,000 severely abused children. When media reports began linking
top Latvian officials to the case, a special parliamentary commission
was assembled to investigate the emerging allegations.
In February 2000,
the chairman of the commission delivered a report to Parliament linking
the country's Prime Minister and Justice Minister, the director of the
State Revenue Service, and a number of army and law enforcement officers
to the case. A campaign was immediately begun to discredit the committee
chairman, including allegations that he is tied to the former KGB - a
classic case of red baiting that enabled the allegations to be dismissed
as 'Communist' propaganda.
On November 27, 2002, The Guardian
reported that many among Portugal's elite were linked to a pedophile
ring as well: "A scandal over a paedophile ring run from a state
orphanage gripped Portugal yesterday as it threatened to engulf
diplomats, media personalities and senior politicians. Photographs of
unnamed senior government officials with young boys from Lisbon's Casa
Pia orphanage were among the evidence reportedly available to police
after they arrested a former orphanage employee called Carlos Silvino."
One revelation in the case was "that systematic sexual abuse of children
at the home had allegedly been going on for more than 20 years and had
been known to police and other authorities for most of that time."
Teresa Costa Macedo, a former secretary of state for families, has said
that she sent a dossier to police twenty years ago containing "damning
proof" of the abuse, including photographs and eyewitness statements.
The information was not acted upon, and, for her trouble, Macedo became
the victim of a campaign of threats and intimidation.
In June 2003, the Independent
reported that police "at first denied her reports existed," but then
later produced them. Macedo has testified before parliament that the
former president, Antonio Ramalho Eanes, the former foreign secretary,
Jaime Garcia, and elements within the police all knew of the ongoing
abuse. An official report claims that, "among the children still living
at Casa Pia, at least 128 had been subjected to sexual abuse. Many are
deaf and dumb." Countless other victims have passed through the facility
over the last thirty years. Among those detained or questioned in the
case were Carlos Cruz, known in Portugal as "Mr. Television"; Manuel
Abrantes, a former director of Casa Pia; Joao Ferreira Diniz, a doctor
at Casa Pia; Jorge Ritto, a former ambassador to UNESCO; Hugo Marcal,
Carlos Silvino's former attorney; Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, Portugal's
Socialist Party leader; television talk show host Herman Jose; and Paulo
Pedroso, a former Labour minister.
A follow-up report in the Independent
noted that Casa Pia, founded by a police superintendent, first "came
under scrutiny 20 years ago when a young inmate died . Officials found
the home's doors open all night and youngsters in a cruising area for
male prostitutes. Four children aged between eight and 12, missing for a
fortnight, were found in a luxury flat in nearby Cascais owned by a
diplomat."
That diplomat was Jorge Ritto. It is now alleged that
Silvino, an employee and former resident of Casa Pia, acted for years to
procure young boys for rich and powerful pedophiles, including Ritto.
Adolescent witnesses have claimed on Portuguese television that they
were offered enticements and "then raped and recruited for sex parties
with powerful 'friends.' Others, now adult, have told of chilling
experiences long suppressed." A Portuguese organization calling itself
Innocence in Danger has been working for years to publicize the
problem of child abuse and child abductions in the country, but have
been unable to penetrate what they describe as a "media blackout."
As of February 2003, a campaign was
underway in Scotland to unseal records that have been sealed for 100
years under special order. The records concern the activities of Thomas
Hamilton, a notorious child molester/murderer who was credited with
killing sixteen schoolchildren and a teacher, and then himself, in 1996.
One police report sealed under the order "concerns Thomas Hamilton's
activities at a summer camp in Loch Lomond in 1991, five years before
the shootings," and allegedly links Hamilton to "figures in the Scottish
establishment, including two senior politicians and a lawyer," according
to the Guardian.
A report in Scotland's Sunday Herald,
from March 2003, revealed that 106 documents had been sealed. These
included "a letter connected to Hamilton, which was sent by George
Robertson, currently head of NATO, to Michael Forsyth, who was then
Secretary of State for Scotland," as well as "correspondence relating to
Thomas Hamilton's alleged involvement in Freemasonry." A deputy justice
minister, Michael Matheson, was quoted in the article questioning the
official justification for sealing the documents: "The explanation to
date about the 100-year rule was that it was put in place to protect the
interests of children named in the Central Police Report. How can that
explanation stand when children aren't named?"
On September 29, 2000, The Irish Times
reported that yet another pedophile network had surfaced: "Eight people
were arrested in Italy and three in Russia, and police said 1,700 people
were being investigated in Italy." The images traded by this ring were
"divided into several categories . The most gruesome, police said, was
coded 'Necros Pedo,' in which children were raped and tortured to
death."
And so it is that we first confront that
most disturbing of topics - snuff films, which most people assume do not
actually exist. As recently as February 1999, the New York Post
assured readers that: "Snuff films are the stuff of urban legend . how
did this legend get started? No one knows." The unfortunate truth though
is that snuff films do actually exist, and they likely have existed for
as long as film has existed, though they were not always known by that
name. According to the Post: "The term 'snuff' was actually
coined during the Charles Manson case, when press reports repeated a
rumor that the Manson 'family' had filmed home movies of the brutal
slayings." Other reports hold that the term was coined in 1976 by a
writer for the New York Times who was in need of a
phrase to describe reports of murders following sexual activity being
captured on film.
In the late 1970s, as Carl Raschke noted in
Painted Black, the "Texas House Select Committee on Child
Pornography disclosed . that investigators probing leads to organized
crime in Houston, Dallas, and other major cities found that 'slave'
auctions for sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys were routinely held in
Mexico. Some of the boys were featured in brutal snuff or 'slasher'
movies." Raschke also quotes from a study by U.S. mental health
professionals that claims that a child from Mexico "can be packaged,
delivered, and sold deep within [the United States] in a short time,"
and that many are purchased solely "for the purpose of killing."
In Enslaved, Gordon Thomas
reported that: "At the start of the year [1991] Britain's Scotland Yard
was continuing to investigate reports that up to twenty children in
London had been murdered last year in [snuff films] and the video tapes
sold on the Continent." Journalist Nick Davies, writing for the Guardian in November 2000, revisited that investigation, which was
centered on a group of British pedophiles living in Amsterdam. The
investigation revealed that the men were running gay brothels that were
essentially 'fronts' for trafficking underage boys, many purchased from
the streets of economically ravaged Eastern Europe, and others collected
from the streets of London. Prominent among the group of pedophiles were
a man named Alan Williams, known as the "Welsh Witch," and another named
Warwick Spinks, who according to Davies, "pioneered the trafficking of
boys as young as 10."
The men used the boys in the production of
child pornography and, according to several witnesses, in the production
of snuff films. Davies wrote: "not just once but repeatedly, evidence
had come to the attention of police in England and the Netherlands,
that, for pleasure and profit, some of the exiled paedophiles in
Amsterdam had murdered boys in front of the camera." Indeed, witnesses
had independently given descriptions of snuff films that were remarkably
consistent in the details of the types of torture used and the manner of
death, though the descriptions of the victim and the filming location
differed, indicating that a number of such films had been made. One
witness claimed to have seen five such films.
In the fall of 1998, British detectives
flew to Amsterdam to investigate a particularly detailed account
provided by a witness. The investigators had in their possession: a
detailed description of the apartment where the witness had viewed the
tape; the name of the owner of the apartment and videotape; the name of
the man who committed the murder; a detailed description of events on
the tape; and the first name and approximate age of the victim. With all
that in hand, says Davies, the detectives "hit a wall." Dutch police
"said it was not enough" to warrant launching any sort of an
investigation. By that time, investigators had been hearing accounts of
the snuff films for nearly eight years. At one point, they had recruited
an undercover officer "to pose as a child abuser and befriend Warwick
Spinks," who acknowledged to the officer that he was actively involved
in trafficking boys. He also revealed that he 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 $5,000 each or something like that."
There is no indication that any thorough investigation was ever
conducted, or that any arrests were ever made.
In September 2002, the Chicago Sun
Times carried a brief report of two brothers who were arrested and
charged with possessing an enormous collection of child pornography.
Seized from the brothers were 5,000 photographic images, along with
about 100 videotapes and 8mm films. Among this evidence were images of
"young girls apparently tortured, raped and killed." The American media
has shown no inclination to shine any additional light on the case.
An account of the recent Italian case
carried by the Guardian affirmed the existence of snuff films:
"Police have discovered a massive international paedophile network
selling violent child-pornography videos to clients in Italy, the US and
Germany . (authorities are) trying to identify 5,000 people who are
suspected of attempting to purchase the videos, some of which appear to
contain images of children being tortured and murdered." The UK's
Independent, in a follow-up published in November 2000, also
confirmed that the seized materials included child snuff films:
"Horrified investigators gathered images of more than 2,000 children who
were filmed while being abused, raped, and . killed." By that time,
close to 1,500 people had been charged in the case, but not - as the Guardian noted - "those in high places who are believed to form a
'paedophile lobby.'"
As in the Belgian, Latvian, and Portuguese
cases, there were indications in the Italian case of high-level
complicity and a strong belief among the people that the facts of the
case were being covered up. And as with the other cases, the Independent
reported that the magistrate heading up the inquiry
"provoked a furore by denouncing a 'paedophile lobby' supported by
politicians which he said openly obstructed the investigators and worked
to prevent tougher sanctions for the consumers of child pornography."
The New York Times reported in March 1997 that there is
"growing public indignation in France and elsewhere about the recurrent
reports of kidnapping, rape or incest involving the very young." The
same Times report revealed that French police had "detained
more than 250 people and confiscated some 5,000 videocassettes" in
conjunction with an investigation into a massive child pornography ring.
Those detained by police were described as "mainly married
professionals." A dozen of them soon turned up dead, allegedly by their
own hand.
The BBC filed a brief report on a
1996 case that was otherwise almost completely ignored by the
English-language press: "Mexican police broke up an international child
pornography ring based in the resort of Acapulco which they said had at
least four thousand clients in the United States," (emphasis
added). A UN envoy investigating the case said that the "child
pornography sometimes involved babies of less than one month old."
In June 1997, the News Telegraph
spoke of over 800 French homes being raided and 204 suspects being taken
into custody. Among those detained were "more than 30 teachers . and a
number of priests," as well as the deputy mayor of the town of Saint
Mihiel. By the end of the week, four had committed suicide, including a
school headmaster. Three years later, the BBC filed a very
brief report noting that a verdict was due "in the trial of more than
sixty people accused of possessing child pornography. One of the judges
hearing the case said examining the video evidence made him feel
physically sick." In a familiar refrain, it was reported that: "the
French courts have been accused of attacking the easy targets -- porn
consumers -- rather than producers and distributors. And one children's
rights group has alleged that senior public figures were among those
investigated -- but their cases were dropped before coming to court."
In 1998, another large-scale international
ring was discovered operating out of the Netherlands and Berlin,
Germany. The New York Times reported that investigators called
the case "nauseating," in that "images of abuse of even babies and
infants were peddled via the Internet and other media." Police
discovered "voluminous records of what appear to be clients and
suppliers from countries including Israel, Ukraine, Britain, Russia and
the United States." The ring was first uncovered when a key member was
found dead in Italy.
According to the Irish Times, he was
murdered by another member of the ring. His apartment in the Dutch town
of Zandvoort was found to contain "thousands of digital images stored on
computer disks," as well as "hundreds of addresses of suspected
suppliers and clients," according to the New York Times. The
images shocked even veteran sex-crimes investigators, one of whom stated
that the seized evidence "left [him] speechless . It looks like the
perpetrators are not dealing with human beings but with objects."
The BBC reported in June 1999 that
two unnamed German men had "gone on trial, accused of running a child
pornography ring in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic." The pair,
along with at least eleven identified but unindicted accomplices, "made
video recordings of the gang sexually abusing children between the ages
of three and 14 since 1993." A large but unspecified quantity of
"videos, photography, magazines and CD-ROMs containing child pornography
were confiscated." Also noted was a possible connection to the Dutroux
case: "There have been cases of Slovak children being taken to Vienna to
make pornographic films. The Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux . was a
regular visitor to one Slovak town."
In September 1998, another ring had been
raided - one that the BBC described as "a larger and more
sinister paedophile network called Wonderland." The San Jose Mercury
News reported, "police in . 22 states and 13 foreign countries
conducted coordinated raids . aimed at breaking up an Internet
child-pornography ring . The ring involves as many as 200 people around
the world, who exchanged over the Internet thousands of sexually
explicit images of children as young as 18 months." The Independent
later reported that the ring "shared pictures of children being abused
-- in some cases live via web-cam broadcasts over the internet."
The
raids included homes in "Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France,
Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal and Sweden," according to the New
York Times, which added that: "Several dozen people were arrested,
but officials said they expected more than 100 to be charged." The
Independent later reported that 107 suspects were ultimately
arrested. The Mercury News implied that that was only the tip
of the iceberg: "The ring actually extends into 47 countries."
The case was described by a British
official as "stomach-churning." The Times reported, "Wonderland
Club members are believed to have posed their own children for pictures
. In other cases . parents may have taken money to let their children be
used." The Guardian reported that over 1,250 children were
featured in the photos and videos, "many of whom suffered appalling
injuries and were seen sobbing uncontrollably as they were being
sexually violated." The Independent added that the victimized
children were "mostly under [the age of] 10." A BBC report held
that the combined raids resulted in the seizure of more than "750,000
computer images of children." A Detective Superintendent with the
British National Crime Squad called these images "disgusting" and added
that "the behavior that has been carried out is absolutely appalling."
The BBC also took note of the fact that, while ignored by the
American press, "Wonderland originated in the United States."
Among the scores of U.S. homes raided in
connection with the case, one yielded a "database of more than 100,000
sexual photographs of naked boys and girls." Interestingly enough, the
Times also noted that another raid, "in Missouri, turned up a
cache of weapons as well as child pornography in a heavily fortified
trailer" - illustrating once again, as did the Dutroux case, the close
ties between organized pedophilia and other terrorist assaults against
society.
As with the earlier raids in Europe, a rash
of 'suicides' followed the Wonderland arrests. By October 24, 1998, the
Mercury News was reporting that no fewer than four of the
thirty-four American suspects had killed themselves. These included a
retired Air Force pilot, a microbiologist at the University of
Connecticut, and a computer consultant in Colorado. In the UK, the
Wonderland raids - dubbed Operation Cathedral - resulted in the
indictments of eight suspects. One of the eight turned up dead four
months later - another alleged suicide.
The other seven were given
ridiculously light sentences in February 2001 for their complicity in
inflicting unfathomable abuse on countless children. Sentences ranged
from 12 to 30 months. Just a few weeks before the sentences were handed
down, the Guardian was reporting that: "Police today arrested
13 suspected paedophiles in the largest ever UK operation against child
pornography." Once again, a massive amount of appalling evidence was
seized, with most of the material featuring "scenes of children being
raped and sexually abused."
The Independent reported in
February 2001: "Detectives working on the [Wonderland] case discovered
that many of the paedophiles were also members of other child
pornography groups." One of the groups most closely tied to Wonderland
was a ring known as the Orchid Club, which had been exposed by a 1996
investigation in San Jose, California. That investigation had led to the
indictment of sixteen men on charges of conspiring to produce and
exchange child pornography. Members of the club were identified in at
least nine states and three foreign countries. By the time of the
Wonderland raids, the Mercury News was able to report that the
purported ringleader of the Orchid Club and "twelve others either have
pleaded guilty or have been convicted in connection with that case."
Their crimes included recruiting "young relatives and friends of their
own children to be molested and photographed."
The club was also, like Wonderland,
involved in "real-time exploitation of children" on the Internet. Club
members were able to send in requests and have them acted-out on live
feeds. The club also held a pedophile 'summit,' at which members "traded
stories about pre-teen girls they had molested and photographed in
sexually explicit poses." The summit was held, appropriately enough, on
April 20 - the birth date of Adolph Hitler and a significant occult
holiday.
In late March 2001, yet another
interlinked, global pedophile network was exposed. That month, the Independent reported, "US authorities announced the arrest of four
American citizens for involvement in an international child-porn ring
called Blue Orchid." The Los Angeles Times added further
details: "the United States and Russia have shut down a Moscow-based
international pornography ring that used the Internet to sell videotapes
of children engaged in sexual acts." These tapes were said to sell for
"between $200 and $300." As an Associated Press release
revealed, "police seized some 600 videotapes, 200 digital video disks
and many boxes of photographs." Video duplication equipment and sales
and shipping records were also seized, leading to "criminal inquiries in
24 nations . Many of the tapes were bought by people in the United
States; others went to Germany, Britain, France, Denmark, China, Kuwait,
Mexico and scores of other countries."
The Times reported that nine
people had been arrested and fifteen search warrants had been issued in
the case. The AP report noted that four of those arrests were
in Russia, where two suspects, alas, had "committed suicide." The ring
was also said by the Times to offer what were cryptically
referred to as "custom-made videos" for the hefty price of $5,000 each.
The contents of these videos were not revealed, but it was revealed that
the "prevalence of child pornography has increased dramatically with the
growth of the Internet. There are approximately 100,000 web sites
worldwide associated with child pornography."
This point was reinforced the next day when
the British press reported police raids on yet another pedophile ring. A
report in the Guardian held "more than 30 people, including a .
man working for a national youth organization, were arrested yesterday
in dawn raids on the homes of suspected paedophiles." Once again being
sold and traded were images "which showed children being abused." A
report on the case in the Independent quoted a law enforcement
spokesman as revealing, "that those arrested included members of 'some
interesting professions,'" though the source demurred from revealing
what those professions might be.
The official did say that they had "a
disturbing scenario of one or two juveniles who have been caught in this
way. One of them appears to be a 13-year-old boy." The police
acknowledged that the arrested boy was "also a potential victim and
would be treated in that light," which seems rather obvious.
Nevertheless, a follow-up to the story that the Independent ran
in May held that the boy had become "one of the youngest people to be
listed on the sex offenders' register."
The next month, the Guardian
carried a report on Eric Franklin Rosser - accused child pornographer,
one of the FBI's ten-most-wanted criminals, and a former keyboardist for
John Cougar Mellencamp's band. According to the report, "investigators
believe Rosser's material is among pornography circulated by a British
paedophile ring . More than 1,800 members are thought to belong to a
club called Teenboys. Its website features boys aged around 12 .
Teenboys is considered bigger than the notorious Wonderland Club."
In September 2001, the Scottish Daily
Record reported that a "Salvation Army couple working on a British
army base have been arrested in a massive paedophile crackdown." Seized
from the couple's home were "some 400 videotapes . computers, discs,
photographs and other material . images of children as young as two have
been found." The same report claimed "a massive vice probe into kiddie
porn in the USA would expose some of the biggest names in Hollywood as
paedophiles. A federal investigation, codenamed Operation Avalanche, has
already resulted in over 100 arrests - and the US Department of Justice
say there will be hundreds more, including celebrities." Lori Rabjohns,
identified as a Justice Department spokeswoman, was quoted as saying:
"These are people who appear upstanding members of society . We're
talking doctors, lawyers - and celebrities."
The investigation came about as a result of
a raid on the Ft. Worth, Texas home of Thomas and Janice Reedy, who had
been operating a business called Landslide Productions, which offered
child pornography for sale over the Internet. The Reedy's website,
according to the Independent, functioned as a portal to "more
than 5,700 websites with names such as Child Rape and Cyber Lolita." The
Reedys had made millions of dollars from their child porn business,
which "employed more than a dozen staff, including a customer service
representative and a receptionist." This financial empire was built with
"money raised from the torture, rape and sexual abuse of children as
young as two."
The raid on the Reedy's home, conducted in
September 1999, unexpectedly yielded a database of the names and
addresses of a reported 75,000 subscribers around the world. According
to a report carried in February 2002 by TechTV, "more than
35,000 [of those] individual subscribers [were] in the United States."
Nevertheless, only 100 arrests had been made at that time of the report
- a number that remained unchanged in the months after the initial
arrests. By early 2003, the story had dropped out of sight with little
indication that there would be any further arrests, despite Chief Postal
Inspector Kenneth Weaver's earlier insistence that the initial arrests
were just "the tip of the iceberg."
More than 7,000 subscribers to the site
were British citizens. Their names, addresses and credit card
information were provided by the FBI to British authorities, who
launched an investigation paralleling Operation Avalanche that was
dubbed Operation Ore. As in America, only a few of the known offenders
have thus far been arrested. Included among those questioned by police
have been television personality Matthew Kelly and legendary guitarist
Pete Townshend.
Rushing to Townshend's defense was
The
Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn, who earlier played a prominent
role in denouncing the McMartin prosecutions. In a posting on his Counterpunch website from February 2003, Cockburn grossly
misrepresented the nature of the charges against Townshend. He charged
that, according to the Supreme Court, "'porn' encompass[es] even clothed
images of children if they are construed as arousing. 'Child' means
anyone under 18." Cockburn labeled Townshend's arrest "absurd," and
claimed that if you "have a photo of a kid in a bath on your hard drive,
and the prosecutor says you were looking at it with lust in your heart,
[then] that is tantamount to sexually molesting an actual kid in an
actual bath."
Cockburn was clearly trying to convey the
impression that Townshend and others are the innocent victims of
overzealous prosecutors. It will be recalled, however, that the images
that the Landslide website was offering to Townshend and other
subscribers were images of "the torture, rape and sexual abuse of
children as young as two." Those are not the types of images that would
easily be mistaken for innocent pictures of a child taking a bath.
Also included among the 7,272 suspects in
the United Kingdom, according to the Observer, were "hundreds
of child welfare professionals, including police officers, care workers
and teachers," all of whom were "identified as 'extremely high-risk'
paedophiles." Particularly well represented on the list were law
enforcement personnel: "Investigators now believe as many as 90 police
officers have so far been identified from an initial trawl of 200 of the
British names found in the U.S. Many of the other suspects work in other
sensitive professions, often linked to the criminal justice system."
On November 4, 2002, the Independent
carried a brief report that noted that virtually all of the British
suspects had "yet to be investigated despite the police having their
details for four months." All the information on the suspects was sent
in July 2002 to the fifty-one police departments throughout Great
Britain, but "despite detailed intelligence, nearly all of the suspected
paedophiles remain at large." No mention was made of why it took U.S.
authorities nearly three years to get the information to their UK
counterparts. In January 2003, the Sunday Herald announced that
the "police inquiry which plans to arrest a further 7000 men across the
UK . is set to end in disaster with many suspects walking free."
Detective Chief Inspector Bob McLachlan, the former head of Scotland
Yard's paedophile unit, told the Sunday Herald, "the lack of
urgency in making arrests will lead to suspects destroying evidence .
before they are arrested." McLachlan also told the Herald that
claims made by police chiefs and the government that they are
prioritizing pedophile crime are nothing but "smoke and mirrors."
The final line of the Sunday Herald
article revealed that, according to police, there were enough "rich and
famous Operation Ore suspects [to] fill newspaper front pages for an
entire year." According to The Register and the Sunday
Times (which reportedly obtained, but did not publish, all 7,272
names), the list of suspects included "at least 20 senior executives, .
services personnel from at least five military bases, GPs, university
academics and civil servants." Also on the list were a "famous newspaper
columnist . along with a songwriter for a legendary pop band and a
member of another chart-topping 1980s cult pop group, along with an
official with the Church of England."
It is unlikely that any of those suspects,
nor the "high-profile former Labour Cabinet minister" mentioned by the
Sunday Herald, will ever be prosecuted. In August 2003,
Scotland on Sunday reported that the Scottish arm of the "massive
internet child pornography investigation Operation Ore has ended .
without anybody being charged with sex abuse." An unnamed Scottish
police chief said that that outcome "would not trouble us if we thought
that all the men who were looking at child porn on their computer were
just sad creeps who did not pose a risk to the children in their lives,
but that is not the conclusion that was drawn from every raid." To the
contrary, what investigators repeatedly encountered was evidence that
suspects were engaged in the ongoing abuse of children.
In March 2002, Knight Ridder
carried a report that stated: "Postal inspectors, the FBI and Canadian
authorities have broken up an underground network of adults who traded
pornographic videos of children - sometimes their own - being brutally
beaten." At the time that the report was filed, ten perpetrators had
already been convicted and "more arrests are expected in the ongoing
investigation of what authorities described . as a unique case."
According to Raymond Smith, head of the Postal Service's child
exploitation investigations: "We've seen organized networks of
sadomasochistic beatings with adults before, but this is the first time
we've seen it with children."
In an apparent attempt to downplay the
appalling behavior uncovered by the investigation, a postal inspector
named Michael Galuppo described the ring as "a bizarre group of people
obsessed with spanking children for sexual gratification." "Spanking,"
it should be noted, is a rather odd way to describe what in fact were
brutally sadistic beatings involving "whips, hairbrushes, canes and
wooden paddles." The abuse was so severe that at least one of the
children depicted on videotape "suffered permanent disfigurement from
beatings that investigators said went on for 'years.'" Among those
convicted in the case were "a middle school teacher . a nurse and former
Boy Scout leader . [and] a former Sunday school teacher."
Just months later, in August 2002, the
Independent reported that U.S. authorities had "announced the
discovery of a 'despicable' child pornography ring stretching to Britain
and continental Europe, in which parents sexually abused their children
and distributed photographs of them over the internet . Robert Bonner,
The Customs Commissioner, said he was particularly shocked to see the
degree of collusion by parents. 'If this isn't unusual, God help us .
I've rarely seen crimes as despicable and repugnant.'" Of the sixteen
suspects arrested in the U.S., one "committed suicide shortly after
being arrested."
These cases were not, of course, in any way
"unique" or "unusual," as veteran Customs and Postal Service officials,
with experience investigating cases of child exploitation, should know.
In September 2003, the International
Herald Tribune carried a report from Berlin concerning "an
international police investigation [that] had uncovered an immense child
pornography ring involving 26,500 suspects who swapped illegal images on
the Internet in 166 countries." More than 500 homes in Germany were
searched and hundreds of computers were seized, along with tens of
thousands of CD-ROMs, diskettes, and videotapes. One seized image
"showed a baby of four months being abused." A statement issued by the
German Interior and Justice Ministries warned that many of the suspects,
a number of whom are reportedly teachers and police officials, "are
extremely dangerous pedophiles and are from all walks of life." About
800 of those suspects reside in the United States.
Curt Becker, the justice minister for the
German state of Saxony-Anhalt, called for tougher laws to contend with
the growing market for child pornography. He also directly challenged
the notion that mere possession of such images is largely a victimless
crime. "Every case of child pornography is a document of the sexual
abuse of a child," Becker noted, and "every look at that image kills a
child's soul."
A January 2003 Sunday Herald
article revealed that police investigators had discovered "that images
of Fred West abusing one of his children are among child pornography
available for downloading from the Internet. It is unclear whether the
child was West's murdered daughter Heather." Fred West was one of the
UK's most notorious, and most prolific, serial killers. Shortly after
being charged with twelve counts of murder, he died while in police
custody, allegedly by his own hand. Like Dutroux, West had constructed a
torture chamber in his cellar where his victims were filmed being raped,
tortured, murdered and mutilated. The remains of nine of his victims,
minus some missing parts, were discovered buried under his house and in
his yard.
While we are on the subject of serial
killers, The Irish Times carried the following report in July
1998:
Police suspect a series of gruesome gay
hate killings in the Sydney region could be the work of a serial
killer whose victims might be linked through a notorious paedophile
ring. The latest mutilation murder was that of Australia's longest
serving mayor, Frank Arkell, aged 68, who was bludgeoned to death in
his flat and who had previously faced 29 child sex charges. In the
past few months two other men, one a convicted child sex offender,
were attacked in their homes in similar circumstances and also
suffered horrific injuries. Arkell, the former Lord Mayor of
Wollongong, 50 miles south of Sydney, was a key witness in a royal
commission into police corruption which uncovered a network of
paedophiles.
Those serial killers sure come in handy
sometimes.
"The case of abduction and murder
against Belgium's infamous paedophile Marc Dutroux remains
unresolved. He has not been brought to book for these heinous
crimes. There appears to be a steel veil drawn over the facts at the
highest level and no one is prepared to expose those involved in
this blatant cover-up . The official answer is that a series of
hysterical conspiracy theories forced investigators to search for
paedophile networks, which didn't exist. But for observers of this
debacle, that's exactly what didn't happen. Far from being
investigated, leads pointing to a network seem to have been blocked
or buried."
Olenka Frenkiel for the BBC, May
2, 2002
". several prosecutors, policemen and
crucial eyewitnesses have committed suicide. Important evidence has also
disappeared. So maybe Dutroux is being protected from on high. What
other explanation can there be for such a disgraceful chain of events?"
Andrew Osborn in the Guardian,
January 25, 2002
"Bruno Tagliaferro, a Charleroi scrap metal
merchant who knew Dutroux, claimed to know something about the car in
which Julie and Melissa were kidnapped. But he was soon found dead,
apparently of a heart attack. His wife Fabienne Jaupart, refused to
accept the verdict and arranged for his body to be exhumed. Samples sent
to the USA for analysis showed he'd been poisoned. Soon after, her
teenage son found her dead at home in her bed, her mattress smouldering.
Publicly it was declared suicide, or an accident. There have been 20
such unexplained deaths connected with Dutroux."
Olenka Frenkiel for the BBC, May
2, 2002
REFERENCES:
1. Bates, Stephen "Cover-Up Claims Revive Sex Scandal,"
Guardian UK,
April 21, 1999
2. Bates, Stephen "Police Admit Dutroux Video Bungle,"
Guardian UK,
June 17, 1999
3. Bailey, Brandon "Net-Porn Ring Traded Stories at 'Pedo Party',"
San Jose Mercury News, July 18, 1996
4. Bell, Rachael "Marc Dutroux: the Child-Killer Who Slipped Through the
System," The Crime Library, www.crimelibrary.com
5. Boggan, Steve and Paul Peachey "As the Net Closed on Wonderland, An
Ugly Truth Was Revealed: This is Just the Tip of the Iceberg," The
Independent (UK), February 14, 2001
6. Burke, Jason "Most Wanted Paedophile May Be in UK,"
Guardian UK,
June 17, 2001
7. Carroll, Rory "Paedophile Scandal Boosts Cover-Up Conspiracy,"
Guardian UK, November 1, 2000
8. Cranford, Helen "Police 'Warned Over Dutroux,'"
News Telegraph,
December 6, 1996
9. Dahlburg, John-Thor "Grisly Crimes Undermine Belgian Unity,"
Los
Angeles Times, January 3, 1998
10. Davies, Nick and Jeevan Vasager "Global Porn Ring Broken,"
Guardian UK, January 11, 2001
11. Dixon, Robyn "3 Top Latvians Are Named in Investigation of
Pedophilia," Los Angeles Times, February 19, 2000
12. Dolgov, Anna "Russians Want Laws on Child Porn,"
Associated
Press, March 27, 2001
13. Fritz, Mark and Solomon Moore "Suicides Follow Bust of Net
Child-Porn Ring," San Jose Mercury News, October 24, 1998
14. Graff, Peter "Child Porn Videos Sold From Russia in 'National
Geographic' Boxes," The Independent (UK), March 26, 2001
15. Hartley, Emma and Paul Peachey "Outrage Over 'Lenient' Jail Terms
for Britons in Child Porn Ring," The Independent (UK), February
14, 2001
16. Helm, Toby "Paedophile Hunt Police Find Human Skull,"
News
Telegraph, September 4, 1996
17. Helm, Toby "Dutroux Urged to Name His Protectors,"
News
Telegraph, September 5, 1996
18. Helm, Toby "Belgian King Acts Over Child Sex Scandal,"
News
Telegraph, September 11, 1996
19. Helm, Toby "Belgium Fights to Shed Its Corruption-Riddled Mafia
Image," News Telegraph, September 14, 1996
20. Helm, Toby and Pamela Readhead "Magistrate to be Taken Off Child Sex
Case," News Telegraph, October 13, 1996
21. Helm, Toby "Belgians Up in Arms Over Sex Case,"
News Telegraph,
October 16, 1996
22. Helm, Toby "Plea by King as Belgians Protest Over Corruption,"
News Telegraph, October 19, 1996
23. Helm, Toby "Belgians Shocked by New Disclosure About Child Sex,"
News Telegraph, November 22, 1996
24. Helm, Toby "Fears Grow of New Paedophile Horror,"
News Telegraph,
January 23, 1997
25. Helm, Toby "Paedophile Arrested After Girl's Body Found,"
News
Telegraph, March 7, 1997
26. Helm, Toby "Raped Children 'Could Have Been Found Alive,'"
News
Telegraph, April 16, 1997
27. Helm, Toby "Belgian Police Under Attack Over 'Link' Between
Paedophiles," News Telegraph, January 28, 1998
28. Helm, Toby "Government Crisis in Belgium Over Dutroux's Escape,"
News Telegraph, April 25, 1998
29. Helm, Toby "Belgium Accused of Cover-Up in Dutroux Inquiry,"
News Telegraph, August 17, 2001
30. Herbert, Ian "Boy, 13, Arrested in Crackdown on 'Net Paedophiles',"
The Independent (UK), March 28, 2001
31. Howe, Kathleen "Russia, U.S. Shut Down Child-Porn Ring on Web,"
Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2001
32. Kennedy, Frances "Italian Politicians Obstructing Inquiry Into Child
Porn on Net," The Independent (UK), November 1, 2000
33. Laurance, Jeremy "British Police Discover More Child Abuse Horror on
Internet," The Independent (UK), February 21, 2001
34. Murphy, Dean E. "Kidnap Deaths Plunge Belgium Into Guilt,"
Los
Angeles Times, September 2, 1996
35. Nundy, Julian "French Hunt 200 More Suspected Paedophiles,"
News
Telegraph, June 22, 1997
36. Peachey, Paul "Boy of 13 Put on Sex Offenders' Register for Child
Porn," The Independent (UK), May 15, 2001
37. Pinon, Bertrand "Inspector Questioned in Child Sex Inquiry,"
News Telegraph, August 26, 1996
38. Pullella, Philip "Italy Shocked by Child Pornography Scandal,"
The Irish Times, September 29, 2000
39. Puzzanghera, Jim "International Child-Porn Ring Uncovered,"
San
Jose Mercury News, September 3, 1998
40. Raschke, Carl Painted Black, Harper and Row, 1990
41. Simons, Marlise "French Police Arrest 250 Men Linked to Child
Pornography Ring," New York Times, March 14, 1997
42. Simons, Marlise "Dutch Say a Sex Ring Used Infants On Internet,"
New York Times, July 19, 1998
43. Steele, John "Hunt for Girls After Bodies Found in Child-Sex Probe,"
News Telegraph, August 19, 1996
44. Sterling, Robert "Daddy's Little Princess,"
The Konformist,
www.konformist.com
45. Stout, David "Internet Child Pornography Operation Is Raided in U.S.
and Abroad," New York Times, September 3, 1998
46. Sverdlick, Alan "The Snuff Movie Myth,"
New York Post,
February 25, 1999
47. Thomas, Gordon Enslaved, Pharos Books, 1991
48. Ward, David "Police Smash Child Porn Network,"
Guardian UK,
March 28, 2001
49. Warren, Marcus "Belgians Shocked by Tales of Secret Policemen's
Orgy," News Telegraph, March 16, 1997
50. Willan, Philip "Paedophile Videos Stun Italians,"
Guardian UK,
September 29, 2000
51. Wilson, Jamie "Dismay at Paedophile Sentences,"
Guardian UK,
February 14, 2001
52. "Missing Kids: Belgian Parents Take Action,"
CNN.com,
August 21, 1996
53. "9 Police Detained in Child-Murder Case,"
Los Angeles Times,
September 11, 1996
54. "Belgian Hero Dismissed," New York Times, October 15, 1996
55. "Mexico Under Fire Over Child Abuse,"
BBC News, November
14, 1997
56. "Dutch Investigate Child Pornography Ring Claim,"
The Irish
Times, July 17, 1998
57. "Child Pornographer Found Dead in His Home,"
New York Times,
September 9, 1998
58. "Child Porn 'Ringleaders' Go On Trial,"
BBC News, June 23,
1999
59. "Verdicts Due in French Pornography Trial," BBC News, May
10, 2000
60. "Porn Ring 'Was Real Child Abuse,'" BBC News, January 10,
2001
61. "13 Arrested in Child Porn Raids," Guardian UK, January 17,
2001
62. "International Child Porn Ring Smashed," BBC News, March
26, 2001
63. Encyclopaedia Britannica,
www.britannica.com
64. Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia
SOURCE:
Child Sexual Abuse in Brussels
The Pedophocracy, Part II: ...to Washington
The Pedophocracy, Part III: Uncle Sam Wants Your Children
(inclusion in this anthology does not imply
the author's endorsement or support of other authors on the subject
included here.)
See more of Dave McGowan at The Center for
Public Information,
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com
END
Bryn
Estyn Children's Home where Police Chief Superintendent
Gordon Anglesea and at least 12 other officers sexually
abused children.
Lord
McAlpine, one of the many high-level mason paedophiles
who escaped prosecution in the Waterhouse cover-up.