Why does Amalia have to stay inside despite her heavy security?

Crown Princess Amalia on the first day of her studies at the University of Amsterdam.Image Raymond Rutting / de Volkskrant

Why can’t Crown Princess Amalia get out of her house, as her mother suggests? Surely the future queen is being transported in an armored car and secured by a battery of burly fellows with weapons under their jackets and a communication line in their ears?

If Amalia has to stay indoors as much as possible because her security is inadequate for a ‘normal’ life, this means that the threat against her is currently greater than the safety that the men with earpieces and weapons can guarantee. This would mean that the TCI, the Criminal Intelligence Team of the National Criminal Investigation Department, has information that has increased Amalia’s threat level, and possibly that of Prime Minister Rutte, after analysis. In that case, there will be information about a targeted threat against the crown princess, with extremely heavy weapons, in order to kidnap her, for example.

It sounds unimaginable and far-fetched, but many crimes have already been discovered around the criminal organization of Ridouan T., the main suspect in the Marengo liquidation process, that defy imagination: such as an intended violent breakout attempt from the Extra Secure Institution (EBI); order to check the address details of prison guards, who for that reason have been approaching Ridouan masked ever since; and of course the murders of the brother, lawyer and confidant of T.’s worst enemy, Marengo crown witness Nabil B.

Ridouan T.

It is therefore not for nothing that the name of Ridouan T. circulates as the client for the possible threat to Amalia. Like some other very serious leaders of criminal organizations, T. is stuck in the EBI in Vught, where communication with the outside world is seriously hampered. But T. has already been caught in unauthorized contact with the outside world, even with the Italian mafia boss Raffaele Imperiale, which, according to the detectives, could allow T. to continue his international hash and cocaine trade from his cell.

How is that possible? This became clear at two sessions in the criminal trial involving Youssef T., Ridouan’s cousin and former lawyer. From the presentation of both the Public Prosecution Service and that of Youssef’s counsel André Seebregts, it became clear how Ridouan works.. Not only Youssef, but according to the detectives, Ridouan’s other lawyer Inez Weski would also have passed on messages for the Marengo main suspect. This would have been done by holding notes or a tablet against the bullet-resistant glass wall that separates lawyer and client in the EBI, or even by smuggling a USB stick that looks like an ordinary pen into the EBI.

Youssef T. is now incarcerated and had to unsubscribe from the law office. But Inez Weski says, despite the claims of the detectives, there is “insufficient evidence” to start a thorough investigation into whether she may be forced to act illegally.

Scented Lawyer Post

Recently crime journalist John van den Heuvel, a former police officer, wrote in The Telegraph that he has heard from the EBI in Vught ‘that the undisputed leader of the Mocromafia is still allowed to communicate unimpeded with his advisers’. Van den Heuvel was the first to publish last month about the serious threats against Amalia. He himself has been protected for years because of threat from the criminal circle.

According to Van den Heuvel, one of Ridouan T.’s lawyers calls the prison in Vught every day at 4 p.m. . This is not allowed.

According to the guarding staff, a female criminal lawyer would also send perfumed letters to Ridouan via the lawyer’s post, Van den Heuvel wrote. Just like a lawyer’s confidential telephone line, the so-called ‘secret-keeper’ line, lawyers’ letters may not be checked by the police and the judiciary. In principle it is therefore still possible that Ridouan T. communicates with his organization through the legal profession.

Crown princess chieftain

What does this have to do with Amalia? The police and the judiciary suspect that the crown princess, or Prime Minister Rutte, is a suitable means of exchange in criminal eyes for getting leaders out of an aggravated detention regime, when outbreak attempts fail or turn out to be impossible: ‘Our chief for your crown princess.’ Therefore, a kidnapping is necessary.

This suspicion of a human medium of exchange became concrete in Belgium last month, when the Belgian authorities received information about an imminent kidnapping of the Flemish Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne. He had to go into hiding and four suspects were arrested in the Netherlands. The investigation into their organization is still ongoing.

The big question is therefore not so much whether Amalia’s security is adequate, but whether the Dutch state has sufficient resources, possibilities and courage to check the secret communication between a suspect and his lawyer, if there seems to be a reason to do so. Officially this is not allowed: that secrecy is firmly anchored in the law. But the Marengo process has already amply proven that the law sometimes falls short.

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