Twan Huys causes a lot of annoyance to Rick Romijn, the witty star sidekick of Radio Veronica. “What a jerk that man is. It’s really just insane to say this.”
It has haunted Twan Huys for years and years: the cheerful broadcast of College Tour that he made with the notorious criminal Willem Holleeder. He told the AD last week that he would not have made that show with the knowledge of today. “That’s the difference I’m making now.”
“What a jellyfish!”
Ah, so Twan has now received principles. Mustard after the meal, says Rick Romijn, a greatness in the sidekick world. “What a jellyfish that Twan Huys is. When Holleeder was interviewed, everyone knew what Holleeder had done,” he says in the Radio Veronicamorning show by Tim Klijn.
Tim then: “Well, he was really the cuddly criminal back then. That’s what he was called. We all worked at another radio station at the time and he was also a guest there.”
‘Ruud’s mistake!’
Rick agrees: “Yeah, 538. We were offered it and we said, ‘No, we don’t want that guy on the air.'”
Tim: “But he did appear in another program on the same channel.”
Rick: “Yes, with Ruud de Wild and he should not have done that.”
Fellow sidekick Niels van Baarlen: “It is of course very strange. Twan Huys says: ‘With the knowledge of today I would not have done it’, but then it was also known that it was not a sweetheart.”
Old fashioned penozy
Tim defends Twan. “No that is right. But then the rumor was still a bit like: yes, that’s a bit of the old-fashioned Amsterdam penoze.”
Rick: “He had been stuck together for twenty years, man!”
Tim: “Yes, for a kidnapping.”
Rick: “Yes and for extortion of five real estate dealers. It’s really crazy to say this [van Twan].”
Niels: “There was already enough reason not to do this at the time. It was amplified after that, but you could have already guessed then: I shouldn’t do this. He is now going a bit backwards… Yes, living afterwards is nice, but best regards!”
Evert agrees
Evert Santegoeds agrees with Rick and Niels. He says in his podcast Strictly Private: “In the 1980s, Holleeder chained two older men, namely Heineken and his driver Doderer, to chains in a warehouse in the western harbor area of Amsterdam. That was already clear the moment he joined us.”
He concludes: “And anyway, if you really had Mandela in that chair, and the greats of the earth and everything, everyone who represents something in the Netherlands… And in that whole list you place Holleeder… (…) It has never been convenient and nor has it ever been understood.”