ANPThe Moroccan Embassy in The Hague
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 07:02
The espionage case involving an employee of the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security could have diplomatic consequences for the relationship between the Netherlands and Morocco, security experts say. Yesterday, the trial against 64-year-old Ab el M. started, who is suspected of leaking state secrets to Morocco.
“In the past there have been cases where diplomats were deported after these kinds of cases,” says Willemijn Aerdts, intelligence researcher at Leiden University in the NPO Radio 1 program News and Co. She thinks that discussions have already taken place about this, “but I think it is still too early to make any statements about that now.”
Because the lawsuit has just started, only what the Public Prosecution Service has shared is known. The suspect has not yet made a statement. It is clear that he was a well-known face in the NCTV building. He has a Moroccan background and was able to attend meetings and consultations as an analyst.
Blackmailed
He had hundreds of documents from the AIVD intelligence service and dozens from the military intelligence service MIVD, which he possibly wanted to pass on to the Moroccan security service. According to the Public Prosecution Service, contact between El M. and the Moroccan intelligence service may have existed since 1995.
It is still unclear why he would have done this. According to his lawyer, El M. is not allowed to say anything because of his duty of confidentiality. Aerdts: “We obviously don’t know about this case yet. If you look at the scientific literature on intelligence, there are various reasons why people commit their actions: money is one of them, sometimes honor and also an ideology. “
In similar cases, employees were sometimes blackmailed, for example if they had gambling debts, says history professor and security expert Beatrice de Graaf. She also emphasizes that there is still much we do not know about this case. For example, El M. could have been put under pressure, or could have been a so-called construction agent who had been working for the Moroccan government from the start.
The documents found on him will not be crown jewels, such as information about ongoing intelligence operations.
Beatrice de Graaf, historian
It has been established that one of the documents the man had in his possession is an analysis by the AIVD from 2021 on Moroccan intelligence activities in the Netherlands, which is still current. “Morocco is a country that tries to maintain control over possible targets abroad; it is accused of following Moroccan human rights activists, for example,” says De Graaf.
“Furthermore, Morocco is a leader in North Africa and the Mediterranean in the fight against terrorism. Many terrorists in the Netherlands have a Moroccan background. A number have been or will be deported to Morocco. The fear among these detainees is that they will end up in the hands of the security services who already know everything about them.”
Top secrets
Not everything seized from the suspect has been investigated. More than 46 terabytes of information can be found on data carriers found with him. The documents he took with him will not be the top secrets of the two intelligence services, De Graaf says.
Presumably, edited analyzes can mainly be found in the NCTV building. “If documents from the intelligence services go to the building of the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, the services will be careful. They will not be crown jewels, such as information about ongoing intelligence operations.”
Semi-authoritarian state
It is formal for a country to spy on a friendly country not done, explains De Graaf. “Officially you report it if you run an operation in the country of an ally.” She cites drug operations and investigations into terrorist networks as examples.
“You have to report that. But that doesn’t always happen. The United States has often run operations without reporting it in the Netherlands. And in this case, Morocco absolutely could not not report it, because this was an operation aimed against the Netherlands. “
De Graaf considers it virtually impossible that the Netherlands also steals documents in this way in Morocco. “Morocco is a so-called semi-authoritarian state, not an open democracy like the Netherlands. People pay more attention there. It is even said that Morocco has the most powerful security service in all of North Africa.”
One hand behind the back
According to De Graaf, an open democracy fights “with one hand behind its back”. “You are actually always at a disadvantage. But the question is, if all this turns out to be true: how harmful is this ultimately for the Netherlands? This may put Dutch people with a Moroccan passport in particular at risk.”
The next hearing in the case is in May. In any case, El M. will remain in custody until then.
2024-02-08 06:02:40
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