The Return of Zandvoort with the Monster of Riga

Jacqueline de Croÿ - 21/12/2010

64 babies abused in Amsterdam nurseries, one of which was next door to the "Baby Porn" unit of the paedocriminal Zandvoort network. Marc Dutroux revealed that horror before his arrest. The Dutch police investigated the Martijn group, which had already been exposed in 1998, when Portuguese Justice dismantled a first branch of this network. They had acted on the basis of an address book, which had been forwarded by Marcel Vervloesem of the Morkhoven NGO.

The case was opened in Belgium in 1988,when investigation lead to the kidnappers of a young patient from a hospital in Antwerp. This victim had been taken to a child pornography studio in Berlin. The Dendermonde law court seized an address book that named Martijn and then closed the dossier on the basis of a report made by the Beveren gendarmerie which in turn made the evaluation that address book did not contain any significant information.

However, research led by Marcel Vervloesem on the individuals in this address book revealed a criminal gang of Belgian, Dutch, English and Portuguese citizens, active in the import/export of children for the production of these paedocriminal films. It became known as the Temse/Madeira network from the title of their videotape, which, with the address book, moved the Portuguese to seek their extradition. The authors were arrested, tried and convicted for the abuse of 34 children.

In June 1998, Marcel Vervloesem identified a kidnapped child in Berlin among the victims of Temse/Madeira from his research in Holland. He uncovered the Zandvoort network, which bought photographic material to sell to various magazines. The godfather of this network fled, abandoning his business, 88.539 photographs and his address books, where once more, Martijn is named.

Marcel Vervloesem was sifting for the pictures sold by the Zandvoort network in "OK Magazine", which Martijn was responsible for publishing. He found material signed Harry Turné, from the "Pojkart" Studios in Lübeck, Germany. He also found more signed Jean Manuel Vuillaume from the Toro Bravo network which was close to the Coral network and was rampant in institutions for child abuse. In addition, he found pictures of Palestra, a French magazine belonging to Vuillaume, whose child porn studio is nevertheless located in the Belgian town of Berlaar.

The success of the Portuguese justice forced other Europeans to open their eyes and consider a co-ordinated effort under the name "Operation Cathedral". It took six months for the first case leading in September 1998 to prosecution for the Vuillaume photographs which appeared on sale through the Wonderland network.

Holland and Belgium closed the Zandvoort dossier after a few weeks. However the work continued in Germany, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Poland and almost all international justice systems. European political leaders, however, all agree to turn blind eyes on the voluntary faults of procedures in the Belgian judicial system which stem from their efforts of quasi murder Marcel Vervloesem in prison. They manage to gag him, but they cannot gag the Morkhoven NGO.

The dossier even rebounded in the USA on early November 2010. The U.S. services "Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the "Homeland Security Institute" (HSI), examined the computer of Robert Didua, a 46 year old of Milford in the State of Massachusetts. They found 10.000 images and videos, among which some had been sent from the Netherlands. One pertained to a two years-old boy who had his nappy (dippers) taken off to expose his genitals and then is sexually abused.

Dutch justice knew about the production circuit of images of rapes of babies in nurseries, since Marcel Vervloesem revelations in the minutes file number No. 8257/01 recorded on March 14, 2001, at the Belgian tribunal at Neufchâteau. He had reported the revelations of Robert Jan Warmerdam, who worked at the n ° 111 Admiraal Ruyterweg studios, where the second wife ringleader of Marc Dutroux's gang worked as a secretary. Van Warmerdam met Marc Dutroux later to answer prosecution for the kidnapping of six girls and the murder of four of them. Dutroux had told Van Warmerdam about a nursery without camera monitoring, where the babies could be drugged and "used".

The Dutch justice reopened the dossier of Robert Mikelson: an 18-years-old kid propelled by a project funded by the European Union out of his native Latvia to a nursery school of Heidelberg, Germany. Mikelson's contract began in September 2002 and ended in June 2003 when he was arrested for possessing and distributing child pornography. He was sentenced to one year suspended prison sentence and moves to Amsterdam.

Mickelson lived with an associate of the previously mentioned Martijn, a Richard Van Olffen, a bus driver and manager thirty websites. He was hired from 2004 to 2006 by the "Community School", which changed its name to "Het Hofnarretje", from February 2007 to June 2008. Two mothers accused him of having taught their 2.5 years-old babies by playing with their genitals. They file a complaint to the police in August 2008. The manager's response was that such young children have a vivid imaginations.

A prosecutor is, however, required to apply the law in such cases. The dossier is evident. The employee of the nursery then acquires Dutch nationality by marrying a supporter of Martijn, a former client of Zandvoort, who was selling pictures of raped babies. The attorney, nevertheless allows Mickelson to escape to Kenya, where he is employed, as from autumn 2008, in an orphanage in Nairobi, which houses 17 residents and feeds 60 street children. Van Olffen, legally married to Mickelson, was managing the websites www.africafilms.nl and www.boyhood magazine.org for two years.

Holland closed the file on the basis of expert opinion of a psychologist who postulated that the words of children are not credible. Mikelson returns to Amsterdam where he was employed between October 2009 and January 2010 at the 'Jenno's Knuffelparadijs' nursery situated at "74 Admiraal Ruyterweg ", just a few steps away from one of the Zandvoort child pornography studios. He offers his services as a baby-sitter, for extremely cheap rates.

The U.S. request has done more for Europe in one month, than EU has managed to do in 22 years. The Dutch justice ordered the arrest of Robert Mikelson on December 7, 2010, but left his husband, Richard Van Olffen, four days to clear the computers. The media calls Mikelson "the Monster of Riga", without explaining why it took them 12 years to feel offended by the pictures of babies being rapes in the Zandvoort file. The even greater monsters are those who closed their eyes on those rapes. Holland seems to have understood that and has put 500 police officers on the dossier.