Journalist Ans Boersma is guilty of forgery when applying for a visa for her then Syrian friend Aziz A., but will not be punished for this. The Syrian later came to the Netherlands and is now a suspect in a major terror investigation. The court finds that Boersma ‘handled reality carelessly and opportunistically’.
–
Last month, the Public Prosecution Service demanded a community service order of 120 hours and a suspended prison sentence of 1 month. In 2014, Boersma applied for a tourist visa for the Netherlands for her then boyfriend Aziz on the basis of forged documents. Justice now sees him as a former head of a terrorist organization in Syria and is prosecuting him for it. Boersma stated during the lawsuit against her that she did not fully know the past of her ex-boyfriend and that she did not know that the documents were false.
–
Great danger
“Does love make you blind? Or is love misused to achieve a goal?”, the public prosecutor asked last month in the court of Rotterdam. “The file shows that Boersma knew that Aziz wanted to come to the Netherlands to stay here. The facts may be of relative seriousness under normal circumstances, but the circumstances are not normal. This man could have constituted a great danger to Dutch society and Boersma knew that he had a questionable past.” The Public Prosecution Service then spoke of ‘boundless naivety’. “Boersma does not see what she has done wrong.”
–
The visa was applied for by Boersma and Aziz on the basis of a forged passport, a false university diploma and a statement that as a businessman he earned 2000 euros per month. During the hearing, Boersma stated that she was not aware that the documents were false and that it was the intention that Aziz would return to Turkey, where he lived at the time, after a visit to the Netherlands. After the visa application was rejected, Aziz still came to the Netherlands illegally. He applied for and was granted asylum here. Years later he was arrested because other Syrians recognized him as a former jihadist. He is now suspected of involvement in the execution of 17 Syrian government soldiers.
–
Boersma was in the news when she was suddenly expelled from Turkey, where she then worked as a correspondent. The expulsion seemed to be about freedom of the press, but turned out to be the result of the Dutch investigation into Aziz. Because the Dutch Public Prosecution Service asked Turkey about Boersma questions, that country decided to deport her.
–
The court stated on Thursday that Boersma is guilty, “but also punished enough by everything that happened.” The court finds it proven that Boersma emphasized that Aziz was a businessman who earned 2000 euros per month. He didn’t. “That is a careless and opportunistic approach to reality.” The judges do not find it proven that Boersma knew that Aziz’s passport was forged. “You may have known that about the university degree, but we can’t prove it.” The court also stated that ‘we do not think that you deliberately wanted to bring someone here with ties to a terrorist organization’. “But someone you were in love with.”
–
Watch our trending news videos in the playlist below:
–
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss a thing from the stars.
–
–
