“The ground fell from under my feet, because I was aware of the possible consequences, for the office, for my family. The next day I was at BNNVARA […] to say that I could not present a talk show for the time being.” Khalid Kasem’s quote from into an interview de Volkskrant seems perfectly applicable to the situation the presenter and former lawyer is currently in, after revelations about corruption in the A.D and temporarily ending his career as a TV presenter. But Kasem reflects here on the previous time that just when he seemed to be getting promoted, he was haunted by his past.
Then, in 2020, he was in it A.D accused of leaks to Ridouan Taghi’s organization and had to give up his dream job as Matthijs van Nieuwkerk’s successor, now he is just about to be promoted to the late evening with his talk show Khalid & Sophie and is accused in the same newspaper of bribing an official.
Audio recordings
Presenting his own talk show has always been a great wish of former lawyer Khalid Kasem (45). When he heard in June 2020 that he could present a new daily talk show for BNNVARA, he described it as making his debut with Ajax in the Champions League. On Friday evening it was announced that he would temporarily resign from his job, following reports in the newspaper A.D.
The newspaper has audio recordings in which Kasem appears to admit to having accepted money from a client in 2019 with the intention of bribing an official of the Judicial Institutions Service. The recordings were most likely made by Peter R. de Vries, then director of the law firm for which Kasem worked.
Also read
New presenter De Vooravond: as a lawyer already at home with the media
De Vries confronts Kasem in the recordings with a story from their client, who was told by it A.D Hans is mentioned. The client was in custody for fraud and claimed that he paid Kasem 8,000 euros to bribe the official who went on leave. “Either Hans has screwed up, loosely translated, or you have simply bribed someone. And we are both in trouble,” says De Vries in the recordings. To which Kasem says a little later: “I didn’t do anything to him. Then the other variant remains.” Here Kasem seems to admit to having bribed the official.
Kasem also defends himself against De Vries in the recordings by saying that bribery of civil servants was commonplace at a law firm where he previously worked. “It was just too easy.” The office, Van Oosten in Amsterdam, mentions that accusation in it A.D “really complete nonsense.”
Kasem himself denies it A.D that there may have been bribery. “It concerned a client with a high outstanding bill. I improperly tried to get some of that paid.”
Both the dean of the Amsterdam Bar Association and the Judicial Institutions Service are investigating the case. Royce de Vries, the son of Peter R. de Vries who also worked at the law firm, responded to the AD: “Although neither my father nor I have been involved in any bribery, it was not ‘my’ case and I did not have access to the file. I will fully cooperate in any investigation, to the extent permitted by my confidentiality obligation.” BNNVARA says that “the allegations must be thoroughly investigated.” It is unclear whether Kasem will return to the talk show, which will start again on January 29 after a winter break. He could not be reached for comment this Saturday.
Guest worker
Setbacks run like a common thread through Khalid Kasem’s life. Setbacks from which he has always emerged stronger, so far. After his mother died when he was nine, he grew up in relative poverty. His father, an illiterate guest worker from Morocco, worked in a soap factory. In Nieuwegein he attended the same primary school as Ridouan Taghi, and was often involved in fights and shoplifting. In the winter the heating at home was not turned on, he said de Volkskrant. “It meant dressing for it.” He later took a cleaning job at the secondary vocational education college where he studied, to pay for his books and tuition fees. Kasem, who went to law school after a job at ABN Amro’s mortgage department, has always said that his childhood experiences helped him later as a social lawyer and as a presenter to empathize with people who face setbacks or are crushed. by ‘the system’.
Kasem’s star began to rise in 2017 as spokesperson for the family of Abdelhak Nouri, the Ajax talent who collapsed on the field in July of that year and suffered permanent brain damage due to cardiac arrest. He wrote a book about Nouri and made an impression in a broadcast of The world goes on about the football player. After participating in The smartest person (he came second) he quickly became known as a promise in Hilversum.
Dream job
A new career as a TV presenter, he would be a relative outsider in the time slot of DWDD the new program Eve going to present, however, was nipped in the bud when it A.D wrote that the Public Prosecution Service was convinced that Kasem had leaked to the group around Taghi in 2015. The article was based on anonymous sources and an intercepted message from which it could be concluded that Kasem allegedly helped an accomplice of Taghi with confidential investigative information. In the message, the accomplice tells how “Mussa’s little brother” provided him with information about the investigation into the discovery of a large weapons cache – Kasem was one of the lawyers who had access to that information at the time and has a brother called Musa . However, eight months later, the dean of the Bar Association stated that this was insufficient evidence for the leaking of information to Taghi’s gang. Kasem was eventually able to work in his dream job as a TV presenter: the program Eve was considered ‘not urgent’ enough by BNN-VARA, after which Khalid & Sophie was created, which he has since presented with Sophie Hilbrand. It A.D ultimately had to correct a message about the case after a defamation case filed by Kasem, but according to the judge was allowed to publish about the Public Prosecution Service’s suspicion against Kasem.
Also read
Khalid & Sophie went beyond the boundaries of journalism in conversation with Royce de Vries