Zandvoort

The murder of Gina Pardaens-Bernaer - Werkgroep Morkhoven.

† Novembre,15 - 1998 †

Welfare officer, Gina Pardaens-Bernaer had joined Werkgroep Morkhoven in July 1998, when the time of the Zandvoort network was discovered. She worked on the Schadwald file, named after a little boy, who disappeared from Germany at age the 11 years and whose research had lead the organisationto the network. She quickly discovered the implication of the German secret service, by the means of the child's father-in-law, Rainer Wolf.

She then started to have telephone, fax and of computer disturbances. She repeatidily received calls of people who would hung down after a long silence. Belgacom, then state monopole telephone company, did not claim to succeed in finding the origin of the interferences, nor of the anonymous calls. Their investigation had carried them to discover that a second line would have been open on her phone, without her to ever having ordering it and that there would have been "a small wire detached".

Gina Pardaens-Bernaer made a copy of one of the Zandvoort CDs and sent it to the organisation "CIDE", which in its turn communicated it to Interpol. She had discovered a "snuff film", where appeared the rape and the murder of a little girl and in which she had recognized a former associate of Michel Nihoul, famous in the Dutroux file. Men stopped her in a train and told her to stop her researches. Since, she travelled by car, but was quickly followed. She then noted the number plates, among which of grey Mercedes which turned out to be that of the former driver of the bar "Dolo": the Brussels' headquarters of Michel Nihoul, where he would meet all police officers who sabotaged each the investigations relating to the sexual exploitation of children.

Gina had collaborated to the television program "Faits Divers" of the RTBF, with the journalist Dessart. They were both heard by the Criminal Investigation Department about the Schadwald case. The officers seemed more interested in their connections with the NGO Morkhoven, than with the disappearance of the child. She found the hearing "highly remarkable, intimidating and clearly directed so making her reveal her sources", she said to the newspaper "De Morgen".

The telephone harassing increased. She received death threats, people whose voices were deformed by an electronic equipment. Following two of these calls, her son, as he was riding his bicycle, was bumped by a car whose driver flee without stopping. Gina Pardaens-Bernaer had just worked with the Werkgroep Morkhoven for four months, when on November 14, 1998 in the evening, she called Jan Boeykens, president of organisation. The communication was so scrambled that they had difficulties to hear one annother, but he managed to learn that she had been object of a new series of death threats: "With what I have found", she said, "either Belgium explodes, or I am murdered".

The same night, at the dawn of November 15, her car was found crushed under a bridge, without any brake impression may be found, which could have shown they were sabotaged. The state of the car does not require any comment. Belgium never exploded. The murder was not object of any police investigation. A little later, the office of her lawyer, Advocate Arnould, was burglered and files were stolen.

The members of Werkgroep Morkhoven, who admired Gina Pardaens-Bernaer, were devastated by the murder, which could have been avoided if the police had fulfilled its duty. The Zandvoort Memorial, for the 10th anniversary of the network's discovery, will also be made in her honour.

Fair well Gina, we will never forget you...