The National Criminal Investigation Department must examine whether the police investigation into the Maggiora drug case in Meppel has been conducted according to the rules and whether the Public Prosecution Service (OM) has made any improper deals with one of the suspects. The court in Leeuwarden decided that on Friday.
The case was adjourned earlier this week after the lawyers asked the court to investigate possible fraud by the Public Prosecution Service in this case. The court has ruled on this today.
According to the lawyers of the five suspects, who have appealed in this case, the truth must come to light. The 39-year-old main suspect Saied H. was previously sentenced to eight years in prison by the court in Assen. The 33-year-old Ivo J. from Meppel, who stood next to the leader in the period from 2013 to September 2017, received ‘only’ three years in prison, because he wanted to open up about the working methods within the group.
According to the lawyers, the Meppeler has been matted after the Public Prosecution Service struck an agreement with him. He got a reduced sentence if he started talking. Even his then lawyer would have been paid by the Public Prosecution Service. In October last year, public prosecutor Henk Mous was questioned about this during a hearing before the court in Leeuwarden.
The lawyers have app traffic that would show that Mous J. proposed a reduction of his sentence in exchange for more information about other (drug) investigations. J. was the bookkeeper of the drug case in Meppel. The data was on J.’s laptop and gang members had been wiretapped.
The Public Prosecution Service may make a deal with a suspect in a criminal investigation, but this must be done transparently. This is then done via a crown witness scheme. According to the lawyers, Mous arranged this with J. outside the defenders, and De Meppeler may have been influenced and directed by the Public Prosecution Service in his statements.
Mous came up with a recording of a conversation with J in October, which would be about this. The tape was stored in a safe. That recording has now been added to the file and worked out in writing. Three months ago, J. was again heard by the court in a closed setting. According to the defense, this showed that the numbering of the interrogations was incorrect, making everything more difficult to check.
As one of the lawyers at the Board of Procurators General (the highest management within the Public Prosecution Service), Sanne Schuurman filed a report against the police for forgery in March. He requested that the National Investigation Department conduct an investigation. “We cannot look into all files, we cannot find out everything. The National Investigation Department can do that,” Schuurman said earlier this week to the higher judges in Leeuwarden.
The Board did not want to include the declaration and thought that the court should decide on this. The court finds it important that this investigation is carried out. In addition, the higher courts also ruled that the now retired Frits van Straelen, as the then highest boss of the Public Prosecution Service, must be heard under oath at the hearing.
“A unique event, this decision of the court,” said lawyer Schuurman after this decision. According to the defender, this means that the court does not rely in advance on the blue eyes of the Public Prosecution Service. The case has been postponed pending an investigation by the National Investigation Department. It is not yet known when the continuation is.