News time
Two Rotterdam police officers deliberately lied while drafting an official report of an arrest. Camera images show that not the suspect but the police used force during an arrest on June 19, 2020 in Rotterdam.
The judge has established. There was a deliberate misrepresentation in the official report by the officers involved, the judge says. The case is now being investigated by the National Investigation Department.
Press judge Jacco Boek is opposed News time clear about the seriousness of the matter. “It’s very serious. An officer’s report is very important, someone can be convicted of it. We have to be able to blindly trust what is written there. Deliberately writing down something that didn’t happen is very bad.”
“No Malicious Intent”
The officer has already been convicted of the warhead, he was fined 250 euros for assault. Video footage now shows he also lied about what happened that day. This can be seen in the images provided by the headbutt victim. The police technical investigation secured the images after the incident, but did not add them to the criminal case file.
Rotterdam police maintain earlier statement e let us know that the force “was aware from the beginning of the difference between the experience of the colleague who wrote in the PV (official report) of the findings, and the images”. However, according to a spokesman, there is “no reason to assume that there is malicious intent or a lie”. The body awaits investigation by the National Investigation Department.
The press judge says it’s impossible the agent had a different experience: “What the agent writes just didn’t happen. We call it a lie.”
The acquitted suspect is Atik Samur, owner of the Aticars company in Rotterdam. He tried as hard as he could to prevent the officers from being attacked, he says News time. “I had a hand in a cast. I couldn’t resist and tried to calm things down”.
The police report states that the officers wanted to pre-search Samur and that he then turned on the officers. According to the judge, the story of the agents is completely different from what is seen in the pictures. The conclusion of the judge is that the truth has been deliberately distorted.
I think what happened here is outrageous. What country do I live in?
Atik Samur’s lawyer Najat Idrissi wants to get to the bottom of the matter and is looking into what steps they can take. “I think it’s outrageous what happened here. What kind of country do I live in?” he says. That’s why he wants to lift the bottom stone. He wonders aloud if this agent can still stay in office.
Idrissi also struggles with whether this case is isolated. “Does this happen to others too? How many times has this happened?”, we don’t know. Now the client had the camera images, but in other cases it’s more difficult to prove, he says. He also questions the fact that the camera images were sent to the police, but were not included in the file. “How can camera images disappear from a file?”
‘Further investigation’
Jaap Timmer, a police scientist at the Free University of Amsterdam, also doesn’t know the answers. He says it’s more common for there to be inaccuracies in an official report. “No records are being kept on this, but I know a number of things. Maybe more research should be done on this”
Timmer advises the Rotterdam police to apologize to Samur and look into their organization.
Watch Nieuwsuur’s news report here, containing pictures of the crash:
