In 2010, the lawyer for the families of Marc Dutroux’s victims was convicted of possessing child pornography images. Director Joachim Lafosse was inspired by the affair to make his tenth feature film.
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The scandal was resounding in Belgium. In his latest film, A silencereleased in theaters on Wednesday January 10, director Joachim Lafosse tells the story of the implosion of a bourgeois family against a backdrop of child crime.
The main character, played by Daniel Auteuil, is inspired by Victor Hissel. This lawyer from Liège had gained considerable notoriety in the wake of the Marc Dutroux affair, before finding himself implicated in a case of possession of images of a child pornography nature. Franceinfo returns to the true story behind this feature film.
An emblem of the fight against child crime
On June 24, 1995, Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo, aged 8 and 9, went missing. Their bodies were found a year later, buried in the garden of one of the most famous child molesters in history. Julie and Mélissa are the first two victims of Marc Dutroux. To ensure their defense,he girls’ families turn to the same lawyer: Victor Hissel. Then aged 40, he appeared for the first time in front of the cameras in August 1996, during a press conference.
Victor Hissel begins a battle which gives him significant notoriety. At the forefront of the white marches, his very offensive speech earned him the status of emblem of the fight against child crime. “He did not hesitate to lash out, sometimes stigmatizing ‘corrupt’ magistrates, sometimes investigators, sometimes politicians”wrote about him La Libre Belgique in 2008.
Her “preacher side”just like his “declarations not always measured and not always forged on the anvil of pure law” However, it attracts criticism, added the Belgian daily. In March 1998, claiming to be the victim of pressure, he decided to abandon the defense of Julie and Mélissa’s parents.
Charged with possession of child pornography
Ten years later, his name appears on the front pages of the newspapers again. But this time, the articles are not laudatory: an international investigation, called “Koala”, made it possible to identify the owners of computers on which child pornography images are found. The name of Victor Hissel appears on the list. On February 18, 2008, his home was searched. He is charged with possession of child pornography images. In public opinion, his image is changing.
During his interrogation, he admitted the facts. Claiming to have been abused by one of his relatives during his childhood, he takes refuge behind personal and medical problems. The investigation revealed that he viewed more than 7,500 images of child pornography between 2005 and 2008. He was indicted.
Without denying the facts, he considers that he has not committed an offense. His argument is legal: he considers himself outside the scope of the law, to the extent that he has “only” viewed the content of the sites. The Belgian law of the time, which dates from before the democratization of the Internet, only condemns the printing or downloading of images, not their viewing.
Stabbed by his son
On April 9, 2009, at the age of 53, Victor Hissel came close to death. The tragedy is not accidental: his own son, Romain, who stabbed him five times, trying to murder him. The 20-year-old young man remains silent at the start of the procedure. He ends up citing his father’s pedophile tendencies as the motive.
On May 4, 2011, the young man was tried for “attempted parricide” before the Liège criminal court. The expert reports note that he was in a state of temporary dementia at the time of the events. The magistrates decided to acquit him, under article 71 of the Belgian Penal Code.
Condemned by the courts and by his peers
Unlike his son, Victor Hissel is held responsible for his actions. On October 14, 2010, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison by the Liège court for “possession of child pornography images”. Tried on appeal in May 2011, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison, this time with a five-year reprieve. Here again, the decision does not suit him. His cassation appeal having been rejected, he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which also dismissed his appeal. This is the end of this long legal case for the sixty-year-old.
Another sanction, this time of a professional nature, awaits him. The Liège Bar decided to remove him from the roll of lawyers in 2012. Victor Hissel appealed. In Brussels, the disciplinary appeal council gives him a second chance: it transforms the cancellation of the Liégeois suspended for one yearhalf of which were suspended.