Feb 26, 2024 at 3:18 PM Update: an hour ago
A prosecutor involved in ‘Marum’s swimming pool murder’ feels cheated. He said he did not know that the key witness in the case had lied. His research team had not informed him sufficiently.
The officer in question was heard as a witness on Monday on the first day of the hearing of the appeal surrounding the murder of Jan Elzinga. The man was shot dead in July 2012 at the age of forty in front of a swimming pool in Marum in Groningen.
Four suspects are on trial for the murder. This concerns Johan L., who is said to have supplied the weapon, and three members of Jan’s in-laws: Jan’s then girlfriend Monique H., her brother Marcel H. and their mother Coby van der L. They were sentenced by the court to prison terms of seven to twenty years for involvement in the murder. The motive has never become completely clear.
The suspects were convicted even though it became clear that key witness Willem P. had falsified evidence. According to the court, some of P.’s statements were indeed fabricated. The part of P.’s statements that Jan’s in-laws had ordered the murder was found credible. And that part was also supported by other evidence.
The defense believes that the police deliberately withheld information showing that the key witness was lying. These lies concern a series of text messages, which P. claimed were sent by Marcel H. The lawyers only discovered that those messages had been forged when they requested all information about the telephone on which the messages were sent.
Officer denies having withheld information
That information was already in the hands of the police, but was not shared in an official report of findings with the public prosecutor that was heard on Monday. The official report stated that the messages, which subsequently turned out to be falsified, could be used as evidence.
And the public prosecutor is very disappointed about this, he stated in the Leeuwarden court. “I need to be able to assume that what the investigation team shares with me is correct,” the officer said. “Let it be clear: based on the information I did have, the key witness was a reliable witness. That is why an agreement was ultimately reached with him in 2020.”
The fact that the officer was accused by the court of not having fully informed the examining magistrate, who tested the agreement with the key witness, affects him. “I did not withhold anything and had no knowledge of the manipulation of the messages. I acted in good faith.”
The lying of the key witness can be a reason to break the agreement between him and the Public Prosecution Service. The officer no longer knows why this was not chosen. “The final decision for that was up to the chief officer,” he explained. The key witness was warned that if anything like this came to light, the deal would be canceled.
P. was sentenced to nineteen years and seven months in prison in 2014 for his role in Jan’s murder. In exchange for his statements, he was released after nine years. The key witness will be heard later on Monday.
Listen to the first episode of the new NU.nl podcast about this case below. You can also subscribe through your favorite podcast app, such as via Spotify of Apple Podcasts.
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2024-02-26 14:18:19
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