Masmeijer was sentenced by a Belgian judge to nine years in prison for involvement in the cocaine trade. He served that sentence in the Netherlands and still had a year and a half to go. He spent Wednesday himself via Privately that he has been pardoned and is therefore free again. The news was criticized by the Dutch Police Association, among others.
“Nothing special has happened here,” said Knoops, who was one of the lawyers for the former NCRV presenter. He also finds the reactions ‘hypocritical’ because, according to him, pardons are granted ‘a hundred or more’ times a year in the Netherlands. “Also to people with multiple homicides. Things that are many times worse than what Mr Masmeijer was convicted for.”
pick up life
It is not going well with the presenter because he gets this over him, says the lawyer. “He thinks: I am free and can pick up my life again.”
Knoops previously gave in a video fragment in the RTL 4 talk show Renze indicated that the pardon was granted due to personal circumstances. “Then we are actually talking about events in his family sphere, which were caused by the detention and during the detention.” In On 1 he says that in addition, in the request for clemency, which was made by Masmeijer’s girlfriend, it was ‘shown that the legal process in Belgium has not been fair’.