disinfozone/The_Info_Web
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity Actions

vault backup: 2026-09-22 22:51:38

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
disinfo.zone 2026-09-22 22:51:38 -04:00
parent d4b588b218
commit 4dd04a9dab
No known key found for this signature in database
108 changed files with 2308 additions and 1071 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

45
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Bernard Weinstein.md
View file

@ -4,34 +4,39 @@ tags:
- Person
- Belgium
- Dutroux
summary: "Bernard Weinstein, born in France, relocated to Belgium in the early 1990s and became a close associate of Marc Dutroux in criminal activities centered on auto theft and child trafficking."
location: "France"
summary: "European Union national living at Jumet and accomplice of Marc Dutroux, owner of the blue Ford Fiesta seen in 1995 surveillance of Dutroux, whose body was found at Dutroux's Sars-la-Buissière property; Dutroux was convicted of his murder in 2004."
location: "Jumet, Belgium"
relations:
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Marc Dutroux]]"
role: "accomplice"
start: 1995
fn: 2
created: 2026-04-28
updated: 2026-09-22
---
Bernard Weinstein, born in France, relocated to Belgium in the early 1990s and became a close associate of [[Marc Dutroux]] in criminal activities centered on auto theft and child trafficking. A drifter with a record for petty crimes, Weinstein collaborated with Dutroux in late 1995 on a scheme involving the kidnapping of three teenagers who had stolen a truck for them, leading to Dutroux's December arrest when one victim escaped and reported the incident. Prior to this, in November 1995, Weinstein witnessed abuses of captives [[An Marchal]] and [[Eefje Lambrecks]] held upstairs at Dutroux's Marcinelle home, as their basement dungeon contained [[Julie Lejeune]] and [[Melissa Russo]]. Dutroux drugged Weinstein with a sedative during a fishing trip, bound him, and buried him alive at a Sars-la-Buissière property, where his body was exhumed on September 16, 1996, alongside those of An and Eefje, showing signs of asphyxiation from the shallow grave.[^1]
Bernard Weinstein, a national of a European Union country holding a Belgian residence card, lived at Jumet, near Charleroi. In May 1994, after the national employment office suspended his unemployment benefit for 26 weeks, he applied to the Charleroi public welfare center (CPAS) for the minimum income, which he received from May 20 to July 31, 1994; under the welfare-to-work provisions of the CPAS law he then worked as an electrician at the Jumet civil hospital from August 1 to September 15, 1994. The parliamentary commission examined whether he had been protected in obtaining the job, including a letter to him from the then burgomaster of Charleroi informing him that he had been hired as a skilled worker following the burgomaster's intervention; it found that such letters were sent pro forma to everyone hired through the program, that more than 2,000 people were in the same situation, and that there was no evidence of special protection.[^3]
Weinstein worked as a video copier at SPRL Video Promotion in Charleroi, processing tapes that potentially included child pornography produced by Dutroux, aligning with seized materials like rape videos and equipment returned to [[Michelle Martin]]. A note addressed to Weinstein, signed "Anubis," was found in his cabin, referencing a "feast" and "high priestess present," linking to the [[Abrasax Institute]] raided in December 1996, though Weinstein's connection remained unclarified before his death. His murder eliminated a witness to the network's operations coordinated with [[Jean-Michel Nihoul]] via [[ASCO]] vehicles for abductions.[^1]
### Surveillance, 1995
The Sars-la-Buissière site, owned by Dutroux, served as a burial ground for victims and accomplices, with Weinstein's shallow grave covered in concrete, discovered post-arrest on August 13, 1996, triggered by [[Laetitia Delhez]]'s witness plate. Autopsy confirmed drugging and suffocation, consistent with Dutroux's method to silence threats, as Martin later testified Weinstein knew of the captives during his visits.[^1]
An informant report of August 10, 1995, said that [[Marc Dutroux]] spent much time with a man of about 35 who drove an old blue Ford Fiesta, and a witness to the abduction of [[Julie Lejeune]] and [[Melissa Russo]] at Grâce-Hollogne recognized that type of car.[^2] A report of the gendarmerie's observation unit (POSA) of August 30, 1995, described Weinstein and Dutroux driving to Sars-la-Buissière, where Dutroux took a van, and then to 63 rue Daubresse, where they received a brief visit from a man in a blue Volkswagen Jetta accompanied by a little girl; the Fiesta then took Dutroux back to Marcinelle. On September 4 the gendarme [[Rene Michaux]] identified Weinstein as the Fiesta's owner in the national register. The commission found that Michaux had received very important information on Weinstein up to three times in a month and had limited himself to a simple identification, "contrary to the most elementary police logic," despite "the worrying appearance of a little girl" with Dutroux and Weinstein.[^3]
### Criminal Involvement
Weinstein assisted Dutroux in the truck theft operation, kidnapping the three teens to extract a stolen vehicle, one of whom fled to police, prompting searches of Dutroux's home where basement screams from Julie and Melissa were ignored by Inspector [[Rene Michaux]]. Weinstein's video processing role at SPRL involved duplicating materials, potentially including Dutroux's rape tapes labeled over films like Laurel and Hardy, sold to clients through Nihoul's contacts. His presence at the Marcinelle home in November 1995 exposed him to the upstairs holding of An and Eefje, restrained after their August 22 abduction under Othello surveillance.[^1]
On November 5, 1995, at Jumet, Dutroux and Weinstein were involved in the theft and sequestration of three adults, the subject of a file of the Charleroi investigating judge Lorent against both men. On the night of November 4 to 5 the Charleroi municipal police freed the sequestered people from the chalet next to Weinstein's own uninhabitable one, which he occupied, and an officer found audio cassettes there, one of them a recording of a television news broadcast on the disappearance of Julie and Melissa; having nothing to link Weinstein to child abductions, the police left the cassettes in place.[^3] When Dutroux was arrested on December 13, 1995, Weinstein was listed as a fugitive and reported to the national criminal intelligence bureau.[^2]
The November murder followed Weinstein's knowledge of operations, including the dungeon built in 1993 with [[Claude Thirault]]'s labor, used for [[Sabine Dardenne]] and Laetitia's confinement. Weinstein's collaboration extended to logistics, though details emerged post-mortem via Martin's accounts of his visits and the Abrasax note suggesting cult ties. Phone records and financial trails linked payments from Nihoul to Dutroux's accounts, funding activities Weinstein supported before elimination.[^1]
### Death
Weinstein's death preceded Dutroux's auto theft conviction, during which Martin fed basement girls minimally, leading to Julie and Melissa's demise. The grave's location near other burials indicated a disposal pattern, with concrete slabs hiding evidence until exhumation under Judge [[Jean-Marc Connerotte]]'s probe, which faced interference before his 1996 removal.[^1]
Weinstein's body was found at Dutroux's property at Sars-la-Buissière, where the bodies of Julie and Melissa were found in August 1996.[^4] At the trial in Arlon, Dutroux asked for "justice" for his friend Weinstein, who he said had been killed by one Gérard Pinon; on June 17, 2004, the jury found that Dutroux himself had sequestered, tortured and murdered him.[^5] Dutroux also said at the trial that Weinstein and [[Michel Lelievre]] had come to take away [[An Marchal]] and [[Eefje Lambrecks]] from his house in 1995.[^6]
### Connections
Weinstein connected to Dutroux through shared criminal ventures in Charleroi's underworld, including theft rings overlapping with Nihoul's fraud history. The Abrasax note implicated ties to Francis Desmedt's group, investigated for rituals but tipped off before full searches. Weinstein's video work linked to broader distribution, with tapes seized containing elite spectators per FBI analysis. His murder silenced potential testimony on [[An Marchal]] and [[Eefje Lambrecks]]' abuses, witnessed during captivity.[^1]
### The Cabin Note and the Video Work
Martin's statements placed Weinstein at the home amid operations using ASCO vans for victim transport, with over twenty calls between Dutroux and Nihoul coordinating sales. The Sars-la-Buissière property tied Weinstein to disposal sites, exhumed alongside victims whose cases involved [[Regina Louf|Regina Louf]]'s allegations of elite parties. Weinstein's French background and drifter status facilitated low-profile involvement until Dutroux's silencing.[^1]
Investigators noted Weinstein's cabin contained the Anubis note, leading to Abrasax raids uncovering police members, though no direct Weinstein links surfaced. His elimination paralleled over twenty witness deaths, including [[Gina Pardaens-Bernaer]], amid probes into [[Paul Vanden Boeynants]] and [[Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin]].[^1]
### Legal Outcome
Weinstein faced no charges, murdered before December 1995 arrest on auto theft. Dutroux confessed to the killing during 2004 trial, receiving life for murders including Weinstein's, confirmed by autopsy showing sedative and burial trauma. The case integrated into Dutroux affair, with Weinstein's death highlighting accomplice risks in Nihoul's network, acquitted of key counts despite evidence.[^1]
Posthumous findings from the grave and cabin informed Connerotte's investigation, removed in 1996 sparking White Marches. Weinstein's video role suggested snuff production ties, but no prosecutions followed his elimination, leaving connections to Abrasax and SPRL unresolved amid institutional delays under [[Melchior Wathelet]].[^1]
Weinstein was said to have come to Belgium from France in the early 1990s and to have witnessed the abuse of An and Eefje at Marcinelle, and Dutroux to have drugged him on a fishing trip in November 1995 and buried him alive. He was said to have worked copying videos for SPRL Video Promotion in Charleroi. A note addressed to him and signed "Anubis," found in his cabin, referring to a "feast" with a "high priestess present," was said to link him to the [[Abrasax Institute]] of Francis Desmedt, raided in December 1996. His death was placed among more than twenty deaths of witnesses in the affair, including that of [[Gina Pardaens-Bernaer]], and connected to the network of [[Jean-Michel Nihoul]] and his company [[Achats Services Commerces|ASCO]].[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). Eye of the Chickenhawk. United States: Thehotstar.
[^1]: Dovey, S. *Eye of the Chickenhawk.* Thehotstar, 2023. Sole source for the passages so cited. Its date for his death (November 1995) conflicts with the commission's listing of him as a fugitive on December 13, 1995, and its placing of An Marchal's and Eefje Lambrecks's bodies with his is contradicted by the reports of their recovery at Jumet; it describes the three victims of November 1995 as teenagers, where the commission's table has adults.
[^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, pp. 47-48, the list of files, and the chronologies of November and December 1995; 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, pp. 48-49 and the section on the POSA observations of late August 1995, which dates the observation report once to November 30, 1995, and otherwise to August 30, 1995, consistent with Michaux's identification of September 4; translated from the French. https://www.dekamer.be/kvvcr/pdf_sections/comm/dutroux/49K0713008.pdf
[^4]: "Sars-la-Buissière: la maison de M. Dutroux vendue à Lobbes." RTBF and Belga, December 12, 2008. https://www.rtbf.be/article/sars-la-buissiere-la-maison-de-m-dutroux-vendue-a-lobbes-5193373
[^5]: "Nihoul acquitté pour les enlèvements." *La Dernière Heure,* June 17, 2004; translated from the French. https://www.dhnet.be/actu/faits/2004/06/17/nihoul-acquitte-pour-les-enlevements-MF73NPYQVBC25I2Y6P54BXIQDA/
[^6]: Fleury, Elisabeth. "Le calvaire d'An et Eefje." *Le Parisien,* April 5, 2004. https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/le-calvaire-d-an-et-eefje-05-04-2004-2004887724.php