Faith healer Tom de Wal says he is back home after he was arrested in Tilburg on Friday evening. He performed a healing service on the street, after the service in the church in Tilburg was banned by Mayor Hoes. “They have said legal consequences are still to come, including personal fines for me.”
De Wal posted a video on his Instagram late on Friday evening, in which he says he is back home. He talks about his experience of the turbulent evening in Tilburg, where he was to hold a healing service at the Praise Tilburg church. The service was actually supposed to take place at the Van der Valk hotel in Eindhoven, but his organization was denied access.
The municipality of Tilburg has said that De Wal did not have a permit for his healing service. That is why the meeting was not allowed to take place there.
His response
“I prayed for people on the street,” De Wal tells his side of the story. “Then the police said: if you continue with this, with these actions, we will arrest you.” He tells how Omroep Brabant wanted to ask him a number of questions and how the interview was subsequently interrupted. The faith healer was then arrested and put in jail.
“It is a bizarre event that this is possible in the Netherlands,” he says. “But anyway, we will continue. We will not let ourselves be stopped. That is my message.”
No response from police yet
The police cannot be reached on Friday evening. So far they cannot confirm nor deny that Tom de Wal is indeed free and whether he will be prosecuted further.