Rules in EBI even stricter: minimal contact, maximum supervision

The new rules involve minimal contact and maximum supervision and this allows the Judicial Institutions Agency (DJI) to prevent criminals from the EBI from continuing their activities as much as possible.

Highest security prison in the Netherlands
The EBI, the most secure prison in the Netherlands, has four departments with six cells each. Well-known residents besides Ridouan Taghi are Willem Holleeder and, for example, Isaac B., the former right-hand man of Bolle Jos. The DJI does not provide any information about who exactly is staying in the EBI. Everything for safety.

Since November 1, detainees in the EBI have had fewer calling and visiting opportunities. EBI detainees are now only allowed to make ten minutes of telephone calls once a week and receive visitors for one hour per week. And the people they call must report to a prison in their area to receive the call there. In the past it happened too often that people who were called transferred the call to others or that there were more people in the same room than indicated.

In practice, few EBI prisoners use the ten minutes of calling time, because their loved ones travel for hours for a conversation of a maximum of ten minutes. The only exception are the detainees’ lawyers. They can be called longer.

Receiving prohibited information
When a lawyer visits the EBI, an EBI employee will from now on supervise. This is to prevent lawyers from obtaining prohibited information and passing it on to other people. Laptops and other devices were already banned in the EBI. The only option to view a file digitally is via a secure laptop from DJI.

Cousin Youssef Taghi was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for holding an iPad against the glass of the visiting room to transmit prohibited messages from outside to Ridouan Taghi. Youssef Taghi is also said to have photographed notes from Ridouan. According to the court, Youssef Taghi abused his position as a lawyer to enable communication between his cousin and the outside world.

Four-eye principle
The change in the law also limits the number of prisoners’ lawyers in the EBI to two. It has also been established that medical treatments and spiritual care always take place in the presence of two care providers. This four-eye principle also applies to other people who have contact with detainees in the EBI, such as probation officers or members of the supervisory committee.

Prisoners in the EBI are confined to their cells for up to 23 hours every day. They are allowed to get some air every day and occasionally exercise in a fitness room. There is also a recreation room where they can sit for a while and a kitchen where they can cook.

This summer showed once again how strict the regime in the EBI already is. The management refuses contact between Ridouan Taghi and his son Faissal (24), who is also in the EBI. Father Taghi is not yet allowed to send a note to his son and the request to only see him through glass was also rejected.

Contact between father and son
A complaints judge indicated in July that he would ‘suggest that the director consider alternatives for contact between father and son’. But the director of the prison in Vught then informed Taghi’s detention lawyer that he would not do that. Mail addressed to Taghi would also not be delivered quickly. “A postcard with two words took months to arrive,” said his lawyer Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen.

In addition to the EBI in Vught, the measures also apply to the Intensive Supervision Departments (AIT) in the prisons of Leeuwarden, Krimpen aan de IJssel, Alphen aan de Rijn and Arnhem.

An AIT is the highest security category in regular prisons. The strictest regime applies in the EBI.