Xavier Magnée, Dutroux Attorney, Dies at 91

Xavier Magnée, one of Belgium’s most prominent and controversial criminal defence lawyers — best known for representing Marc Dutroux in 2004 — died on Monday 21 September 2026 at the age of 91, RTBF reported. His death was announced by his son. A former bâtonnier (head) of the French Order of the Brussels Bar and a co-founder of Avocats sans Frontières, Magnée was widely described as one of the last great “ténors du barreau” — the courtroom orators of an older tradition.

A career that spanned six decades

Born and raised in Uccle, Magnée began his career at the Brussels Bar in 1963, according to DHnet. Eleven years later, in 1974, he defended Marcel Habran — convicted repeatedly, notably for armoured-vehicle robberies — his first media client and the case that first brought him to public attention.

Over the following decades, Magnée became one of the best-known faces of the Brussels Bar. RTL Info noted that his practice took in several figures at the heart of high-profile criminal cases, including Patrick Haemers, Marcel Habran and Geneviève Lhermitte. He also served as bâtonnier of the Ordre français des avocats du barreau de Bruxelles.

The Dutroux trial

Magnée’s name will remain inseparable from the Dutroux affair. He took over the defence of Marc Dutroux in 2003 and represented him before the Assize Court of Arlon in 2004, in a trial that gripped the country for months. As DHnet recounted, he adopted an aggressive strategy — interrogating the grey areas of the investigation and the hypothesis of a network around Dutroux — to the point of becoming himself one of the most commented-upon protagonists of the proceedings.

Reflecting on the case two decades later, Magnée told RTL in 2024: “He is a sick man, yes; I don’t know of a worse case that I defended in my 60 years at the Bar.” In the same RTL interview, he said of the trial: “I have the feeling of having served no purpose.”

In 2007, Magnée and his colleague Dany Spreutels defended Geneviève Lhermitte, convicted of the murder of her five children in Nivelles, arguing penal irresponsibility based on her mental state at the time of the facts — an argument that failed. According to DHnet, Magnée felt a great deal of empathy for his client.

Tributes from the legal world

News of his death prompted tributes from across the Belgian legal establishment. Daniel Spreutels, a long-time friend who began his career under Magnée in 1973 and later pleaded several cases at his side, said: “His death is that of an exceptional tenor.” He described Magnée as “truly the lawyer, the tenor as one conceived of them in the old days”, adding that “a whole generation of young lawyers made it a point of honour to go and hear him plead, convinced that hearing Maître Magnée was a privilege.”

Spreutels said the two had remained close. “I visited him again this weekend for a final goodbye,” he said. “He was a man who always lived for the Bar. He embodied elegance and panache… he always said he wanted to die at the bar.”

The respect extended to those he trained. Henri Laquay, a former trainee, said: “As a trainee I was very proud to work for him. Professionally, he was very demanding. In court, everyone was wary of his talent. He was capable of turning a trial around in two minutes… Bâtonnier Xavier Magnée was the last Prince of the Palace.”

Beyond the courtroom

Magnée’s career ranged far beyond criminal defence. He placed the defence of human rights at the heart of part of his professional engagement, co-founding Avocats sans Frontières in the early 1990s — an organisation born in Belgium and committed to access to justice and the defence of fundamental rights, RTL noted. He also presided over the association of the Prix Lejeune and Janson prizes, awarded each year to young lawyers.

His choice of clients drew occasional comment, encompassing both members of the royal family and figures such as Dutroux. A 2020 DH interview was headlined: “Some wondered how I could defend members of the royal family and Dutroux.” Yet colleagues remembered a man of unexpected accessibility — as at ease, Spreutels said, “with notables and the great of this world as with ordinary people”.

What’s next

Magnée had retired shortly before his death. His passing closes a chapter in the history of the Belgian Bar: with him goes one of the last practitioners of an old-school style of advocacy defined by elegance, panache and command of the fine phrase. For a legal world that has long since moved on from that model, his career remains a benchmark — and his role in the Dutroux trial a permanent part of Belgium’s most painful criminal case.