Resigning is not an option, said OM foreman Gerrit van der Burg on a television program on Wednesday News hour in response to the harsh criticism that echoes from the report Monitor and Secure of the Dutch Safety Board (OVV). Everything went wrong with the protection of three victims from the circle of Nabil B., key witness in the Marengo criminal case involving main suspect Ridouan Taghi.
Van der Burg takes the criticism to heart, he said, as do the points for improving the complex monitoring and security system. But there is no getting up. He believes that there is only one answer: to continue ‘stoically’ with ‘the fight against the ruthless violence in the drug environment’.
The words of the President of the Board of Prosecutors General on television echoed his written response to the OVV’s findings. He states that the threat to the lives of Nabil’s brother Reduan, lawyer Derk Wiersum and crime reporter Peter R. de Vries was caused by ruthless criminals, and not by “the use of a key witness”.
You have to be careful not to use today’s knowledge to judge a situation from years ago, says Van der Burg. In the murder of the brother of the key witness, the Public Prosecution Service was “confronted with an unexpected, very serious threat, in which the unimaginable has unfortunately become reality”. In that situation, all involved justice and police employees have “given their utmost” in the eyes of the OM chief.
Conflicting interests, broken promises, missed details – the Public Prosecution Service failed in the crown witness deal
Few people will tell Gerrit van der Burg that he will stand for his people. And no one disputes the observation that justice and police officers have had to work under very difficult conditions. But there are question marks about continuing stoically on the chosen path that Van der Burg advocates.
In his letter to the OVV, for example, Van der Burg asks for understanding for the fact that security has been made more difficult because Nabil’s murdered brother Reduan and Peter R. de Vries “did not fully cooperate”. For Van der Burg, fighting crime is so important that an innocent family member of a crown witness apparently has to comply with the wishes of the Public Prosecution Service. And if that person refuses, then that is asking for trouble that should not be complained about afterwards.
Unfairly treated
It reads like a kick in the direction of Reduan and De Vries, who thought that the crown witness and his family were treated unfairly by the government. It has been Reduan who, from the very first conversation about a deal with his brother, has warned of the consequences for the safety of all involved. “You are endangering us,” Reduan told the Public Prosecution Service in early 2017. A signal that was ignored by Van der Burg and his OM in the great interest of fighting crime.
Those vain warnings from Nabil B., Reduan and the rest of their family also raise the question of whether the attack on Reduan was as unexpected and unimaginable as Van der Burg suggests in his response to the OVV report. Van der Burg was also explicitly warned internally about the possible consequences of the deal with Nabil B. According to the OVV, this is evident from a threat analysis made by the Witness Protection Team (TGB) on behalf of OM CEO Van der Burg himself. More than half a year before the murder of Reduan, the TGB determined that the risk for Nabil B. and his close family after publication of the deal would be “high” and the threat “serious”. The team warned that the possibility that a loved one could be killed should be taken into account if the star witness was not reachable as a target.
This so-called ‘target substitution’ was therefore seen as a real possibility at an early stage. Nabil B. has stated about this himself. Because a rival of Taghi could not be found, one of his accomplices was killed, the key witness said. And there were reports in which, according to the police, Taghi talked about “putting his family to sleep” if Nabil B. started talking. So it wasn’t that surprising.
That is why TGB advised that after publication of the deal, the key witness and his family should be secured by the Guard and Security service in the Central Netherlands region. Most of Nabil’s relatives live there. However, Van der Burg did not share this report with the Central Netherlands Chief Public Prosecutor, who would be responsible for the security of Nabil B’s family after the deal was closed.
Threat Analysis
But more went wrong with this TGB advice. Because there are no precisely defined legal rules for the use of crown witnesses, the Public Prosecution Service has set up its own advisory body: the Central Review Committee. This CTC recommended approving the deal in November 2017, but also wrote that given the threat analysis, “a special duty of care” would arise. The Minister of Justice and Security then gave oral permission for the deal, followed by another test by an investigating judge.
This looks neat at first glance. But after reading the OVV report, the conclusion is that in these proceedings, the main focus was on the interests of the investigation and not the safety of Nabil B. and his loved ones.
The review committee assumed that the duty of care had been fulfilled and that security measures had been taken for Nabil B’s family. But that assumption was incorrect, the OVV concludes, and it was not checked either. Less than two months before the presentation of the deal with Nabil, the chief public prosecutor for the Central Netherlands was confronted with the fact that security had to be organized for 40 people. A task that, contrary to the duty of care, was not ready when the deal was presented.
All this raises the question of whether this OM committee has seriously assessed or checked the form. The same applies to the permission granted by the minister. Because then Minister of Justice Ferd Grapperhaus verbally approved the deal, it is completely unverifiable what he knew, what exactly he agreed to and, most importantly: whether he was sufficiently aware of the duty of care that the government assumed towards the key witness and his family.
The OVV has no answer to these questions. But the recommendation to the Public Prosecution Service to ‘map out a crown witness process in a structured way from the start’ can hardly be read as a recommendation to ‘continue stoically’ on the chosen path.
It also does not fit with the proposals of Minister Yesilgöz (Justice and Security, VVD) to quickly make more deals with crown witnesses possible. Whether the House of Representatives agrees with this does not seem self-evident after this OVV report. A step in place is more likely. If only because the police top reported on Friday that there is currently insufficient manpower to close new deals. Van der Burg will no longer settle this discussion. He will retire in three months.
A version of this article also appeared in the March 4, 2023 newspaper