Demonstrations and wildcat strikes spread across Belgium on Tuesday to mark the nation's outrage over the dismissal of the chief investigator of a murderous child-sex ring.
The job actions followed a Supreme Court ruling to remove investigating judge Jean-Marc Connerotte from the case of Marc Dutroux, a convicted child rapist. Monday's ruling cast doubt on the future of the inquiry into the killing of four girls and the search for at least a half-dozen other children.Hundreds of striking auto workers marched on the Brussels Justice Palace on Tuesday. Bus drivers blocked off a local court in northern Antwerp, steel workers struck in eastern Liege, rail workers stopped all traffic on a busy Brussels intersection and firefighters and oil workers also went on strike.
The spontaneous demonstrations gave credence to most newspaper editorials Tuesday that said the ruling would further erode public confidence in Belgium's justice system, which has been criticized for bungling the Dutroux investigation.
"Powerless Anger," headlined the daily Het Volk.
"Connerotte and His Unjust Judges," read De Morgen's headline.
The Supreme Court said it was dropping Connerotte from the case because he could no longer be impartial after having attended a fund-raising spaghetti dinner last month for families of missing children.
The charges were brought by Dutroux's attorney, Julien Pierre. He said Monday that the Supreme Court had acted with "infinite wisdom" in dismissing the judge.
Connerotte became a national hero in August after his investigators rescued two children from a secret dungeon on Dutroux's property, found the bodies of four kidnapped young girls and uncovered a child pornography network. His lead role in the case had restored some credibility to the justice system plagued by rumors of a cover-up to protect powerful people.
The parents of two children who were found killed on Dutroux's property said Tuesday their lawyers would lodge a protest against Connerotte's dismissal. But the move was expected to have little impact on the ruling.
In the 1980s, Dutroux was imprisoned for sexually abusing five children, but he was released in 1992 after serving only about half of his 13-year sentence after convincing social workers and psychiatrists that he was rehabilitated.
Children soon started disappearing across Belgium, but police failed to conduct a concerted investigation.
Numerous tips pointed to Dutroux, including one from his mother. But police failed to take action or refused to share information.
Errors piled up even as police closed in on Dutroux. They searched his house twice but failed to find the secret chamber.
But under Connerotte's direction, two young girls were found in a secret 12-by-9-foot chamber in the basement of the jobless electrician's shabby home in Charleroi, 37 miles south of Brussels.
The bodies of four others were dug up on another of his properties.