Anne Thily, Belgium’s first woman prosecutor-general, dies in Liège

Anne Thily, the former prosecutor-general at the Liège Court of Appeal and the first woman to reach that position in Belgium, died in Liège on 19 August 2026. A published death notice records that she was born on 13 October 1937, making her 88; several Belgian news reports described her as 89. The cause of death has not been made public.

For Belgium, her death closes a chapter associated with one of the most painful tests of the country’s justice system. Thily led the prosecution service attached to the Liège Court of Appeal from 1996 until her retirement in 2004, according to contemporary material from the Liège-Huy Bar. She entered the post just as the Dutroux investigation exposed grave failures in the handling of missing-child cases and shattered public confidence in police, prosecutors and the judiciary.

Liège broadcaster QU4TRE reported that Thily was present during the judicial response to both the Dutroux case and the long-running investigation into the 1991 assassination of socialist politician André Cools. She was also present when the parents of Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo were informed in August 1996 that their daughters’ bodies had been found, according to reporting carried by Belga and Belgian newspapers. That proximity to the victims’ families placed a human burden alongside her institutional responsibility.

Her record cannot be reduced to ceremonial descriptions of a pioneer. The Belgian Chamber’s archive shows that Thily’s reporting on the Julie and Mélissa and An and Eefje investigations was examined as Parliament established its inquiry into the handling of the Dutroux-Nihoul case. The commission investigated failures across the police and judicial chain; Thily, as Liège prosecutor-general, had to account for decisions made inside a system facing intense public anger. Contemporary reporting also described tensions between her defence of judicial institutions and parliamentarians demanding fuller accountability.

At the same time, reports on her death emphasise that she acted against misconduct within her own prosecution service. QU4TRE recalls that she referred two members of the Liège prosecutor-general’s office for proceedings over allegations including fraud, corruption, handling stolen goods and misuse of labour. Historical reporting by Le Monde confirms that files concerning two Liège magistrates were transmitted to the competent authorities soon after she took office. These were accusations and proceedings involving the named magistrates, not findings against Thily herself.

The two readings of her legacy are not mutually exclusive. Belgian judicial and local-news accounts present a forceful magistrate who broke a gender barrier and tried to keep a deeply shaken institution functioning. The parliamentary perspective, represented by the Dutroux inquiry led by Marc Verwilghen, placed the emphasis on systemic failures, scrutiny and the public’s right to answers. In a 2004 interview with the Liège Bar, Thily offered her own framing: justice had evolved from a closed institution towards one more open to the public, and she portrayed her office as accessible to people in distress.

Her appointment mattered beyond personal symbolism. Becoming Belgium’s first woman prosecutor-general in 1996 demonstrated that the highest levels of the public prosecution service were no longer formally reserved in practice for men, although one appointment did not settle the broader question of representation in judicial leadership. Her career also illustrates how senior prosecutors occupy a difficult position between operational independence, ministerial responsibility, parliamentary oversight and victims’ expectations.

No public statement from the federal justice minister, the federal prosecution service or an EU institution was identified in the sources reviewed by publication time. An EU response would not ordinarily be expected: Thily’s office belonged to Belgium’s national judicial order, not to an EU body in Brussels. Attention will instead turn to any funeral arrangements or institutional tribute announced by her family, the Liège judicial authorities or the Belgian magistracy.