The controversy is never far away if the name Mink Kok falls

On 11 June, on the last day of his criminal case on appeal, Robert Mink Kok smiles the court with a smile. Dressed in pale jeans, black sneakers and dark green shirt greets the tan cook in a friendly way.

When the 64-year-old Amsterdammer takes a seat, he puts a stack of pieces very precisely on the desk who is reserved for the only suspect. It is characteristic: Kok is a control freak.

And he is used to standing up for himself. But today he has the floor to his lawyer Mark Teurlings.

Weapon trade

In June 2023, the Rotterdam District Court sentenced to six years in prison for involvement in the smuggling of approximately four hundred kilos of cocaine and setting up a drug lab to treat that hard drug. According to the Public Prosecution Service, that happened in 2020, Kok has been in custody since 2022.

According to Teurlings, however, Kok was wrongly convicted. In fact, during the handling of the appeal in The Hague, the lawyer argued that there is deception. According to the criminal lawyer, the file on the cocaine smuggling contains a manipulated official report.

That is a brisant accusation that suits Kok’s a difficult relationship with the Dutch government.

It goes back to the year 2000. In that year, Kok was also detained, then on suspicion of large -scale arms trade.

Why is the controversy never far away if the name Mink Kok falls?

Manipulated

The evidence in the case against Kok comes – as so often in recent years – from telephones with which encrypted messages were sent. Kok also used such a phone, as can be seen in the documentary Narcostat from Danny Ghosen from 2019.

According to the OM, Kok is involved in sending a party of four hundred kilos of cocaine that ended up in a German supermarket between the bananas in 2020. The messages would show that Kok tried to get the cocaine back.

According to Teurlings, Kok denies having sent those messages. According to the lawyer, it is worse that the presentation of those messages in the file is intended to strengthen the accusation against Kok. According to Teurlings, a reporter has added photos to the messages that do not belong at all.

His cynical smile summarizes what he has often claimed about the government and the OM: you can’t trust it

And so the criminal lawyer talks about manipulation. The denial of that accusation by the OM is Kok in silence in the courtroom. With a cynical smile who summarizes what he has often claimed about the government and the OM: you can’t trust it. Just like at the court, the requirement is nine years in prison.

When the chairman of the Court gives the suspect the opportunity to a final word, Kok only says he joins his lawyer. And that has been different.

Press room

Kok’s quest against the government starts in the nineties. As a drug smuggler, he benefits from a controversial investigation method, whereby the government passes through drugs in the hope of getting the top of organized crime.

Kok comes into the picture a few times, but he is not being prosecuted. That only happens in 1994, when he is caught for arms and drug trafficking. A first conviction follows. Kok believes that the government is patronizing citizens with the drug ban. That anarcholiberal attitude gives him the nickname the thinker in the environment.

In March 2000, Kok will reach the front pages of all newspapers when he is being continued again. A real arsenal of weapons has been found, as well as more than two hundred thousand XTC pills, in an apartment on the Amsterdam Nachtwachtlaan.

Zoom in

His fingerprints are on the weapons, but that does not mean that he is the owner of those things. In a closed session, he will have the chance to explain this somewhat unusual reasoning. According to Kok, he was “building an information position” for the then public prosecutor Fred Teeven.

That should not be known, says Kok: “I deny it during a public session.” But as it turns out: because of an error, everything that Kok said during the private session said can be heard in the press room of the court.

That can be read in one report that NRC made of the session. To make it all even more painful, the case officer reports at the hearing that there was indeed contact with Kok, but that he does not have the formal status of informant.

Liquidation

It is a tricky incident in court, who was unable to guard confidentiality. It is also unpleasant for Kok. He apparently maintains contact with the enemy – the professional criminal who would fight against the government: the Public Prosecution Service. And the OM does not hesitate to maintain contact with criminal leaders.

In this case, Kok is ultimately sentenced to a punishment of three and a half years in prison. He brings a large part of the Amsterdam underworld war that broke out, safely behind bars.

For while he is sitting out that punishment, he is retained again, on suspicion of a liquidation in 1993, the long, as he is also called because of his long, slender figure, is also acquitted.

After he was released in 2007, Kok leaves abroad, and he stays in Libanon in particular. He was also convicted there in 2013, for drug trafficking. A punishment he has served.

The acquittal in the liquidation case still plays a role. Kok has been wrongly in custody for years, he can now struggle against a possible conviction. Whether it comes that far is now in the hands of the Hof van The Hague, which will rule this Wednesday afternoon.

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