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News from the NOS•
A man was unjustly incarcerated for 2.5 years at the hands of the Dutch government, writes de Volkskrant, who has been following the case since 2019. The businessman was arrested by the Marechaussee in Schiphol in June 2019, although he was not a suspect anyway.
The state has always claimed that it was arrested for a previous EU Court of Justice ruling, but it turned out to be wrong. The FIOD insisted on the arrest of the man, because he was identified as a suspect in the correspondence between the branches of the government.
The man was initially presented as a “person involved” in a money laundering case, but was eventually named a suspect twice. Why and how this happened is unclear. According to the newspaper, everything was then aimed at detaining him.
Lost trust
De Volkskrant sent a WOB request, but only a few emails were forwarded. The ministry says it no longer has the documents, while those documents had previously been handed over to the lawyer.
The man claims to have lost faith in the Dutch government due to his arrest and detention. His attorney for him says he is entitled to substantial compensation. The then Minister of Legal Protection, Sander Dekker, had already pardoned him in December 2021 because the case had been going on for some time.
