Ridouan Taghi will no longer be allowed to receive family members in the Ebi, the Extra Secure Institution in Vught where he is detained for the next three months. His lawyer Inez Weski reports in a press release that this measure was taken in response to reports in The Telegraph.
According to the newspaper, the police suspect that plans are being made on behalf of Taghi for the kidnapping of Prime Minister Mark Rutte or Princess Amalia. The security of Rutte and Amalia would have been tightened for that reason. Taghi vehemently denies such plans through his lawyer.
Contact with Mohammed B.
The Telegraph also reports that Taghi communicates by letter with Mohammed B., who has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Theo van Gogh. Taghi and B. were detained in the same wing of the Ebi until B. was transferred to the Schie in Rotterdam last September. Weski confirms that the two have since exchanged letters about religious matters.
The police fear that coded messages have been processed therein. This fear is fed because Taghi sometimes refers to Koran verses or other religious texts in his communication with his family. Inez Weski states that her client hopes the correspondence will be made public to make it clear that the conclusions drawn from it are incorrect.
Three scenarios
Last October, it was revealed that Taghi was working on an outbreak attempt, thanks to recorded communications between Taghi and his cousin and lawyer Youssef. During that investigation, which led to the arrest of Youssef, indications also surfaced that Taghi sometimes communicates in code.
Despite internal warnings, this possibility has not always been taken seriously by the judiciary and the police. For a long time it was thought that the strict Ebi regime offered no means of communicating unnoticed. Meanwhile, the police have concluded from messages from relatives of Taghi that Taghi has managed to send messages to business partner Raffaele Imperiale, a prominent member of the Italian Camorra, well-informed sources within the investigation have already informed this newspaper.
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Since the release of the escape plans from the Ebi, Taghi has been subject to the strictest possible regime. For example, he is only allowed to have a telephone conversation in Moroccan once a week because within the Ebi there was a feeling that he deliberately communicated in different languages, in order to make checking these messages more difficult. All communication from Taghi is checked but translation takes time, which leads to a delay of that check.
Order measure
Lawyer Weski reports in her press release that family members who want to call Taghi must report to a Dutch police station to communicate with him from there. This is a disciplinary measure that follows irregularities in telephone calls that occurred last year.
Also read: Ridouan Taghi worked on three escape scenarios from the Ebi
Tension around Taghi within the Ebi has increased in recent months, a reliable source reported to this newspaper. For example, Taghi has only been communicating with guards via notes for more than a month to prevent guards who, in Taghi’s view, have made incorrect reports of incidents from doing so again. In her press release, Weski confirms that Taghi only communicates with his guards via notes.
According to Weski, Taghi is preparing a complaint against the management of the Ebi in connection with the spread of “disinformation and forgery” by Ebi personnel.