AMSTERDAM (CN) — Judges in Amsterdam convicted 17 men for multiple murders, attempted murders and related crimes, sentencing three to life in prison on Tuesday.
Inside a highly secured courtroom known as The Bunker, the Amsterdam District Court found the country’s former most wanted man Ridouan Taghi guilty of running a criminal organization that killed five people and tried to kill two more.
“He decided who would be killed and spared no one. The amount of suffering Taghi caused to the victims and their loved ones is barely imaginable,” the presiding judge said. The judiciary asked the press not to identify judges or court personnel by name out of security concerns.
The 46-year-old Taghi was not in court and declined to watch the hearing from the high-security prison where he has been held in pre-trial detention since 2018.
The case was a major media spectacle in the Netherlands, where the court had to provide a live stream in another building for members of the public who wanted to watch the verdict being announced.
Law enforcement long struggled to bring charges against the gang members, who allegedly trafficked cocaine. Then, a witness identified as Nabil B. — the Dutch do not identify witnesses nor suspects by their full names — came forward.
During the trial, Nabil B.'s brother, his lawyer and a Dutch journalist working on his behalf, Peter R. de Vries, were killed. The violence led to accusations of the Netherlands turning into a narco-state.
"The rule of law has been under pressure during this case, but the rule of law today shows that justice will be served, no matter what happens,” spokesperson Ferry van Veghel told reporters.
Nabil B. was given ten years in prison for attempted murder, a sentence which was halved for his cooperation with the investigation.
The 17 defendants were variously charged with the murder of six people, the attempted murder of four others and a range of additional crimes.
Ronald Bakker, who worked at a spy shop where Taghi’s organization sometimes bought eavesdropping equipment, was among the victims in the case. Bakker was shot and killed in front of his home in 2015 as his wife watched from their living room.
Another victim was Dutch crime blogger Martin Kok, who was killed in 2016 after reporting on Taghi’s organization. The group had tried to kill Kok before, one of the attempted murders included in the proceedings, but the gun misfired.
At trial, which began in 2018 and generated a case file of more than 10,000 pages, prosecutors relied heavily on evidence from 3.6 million decrypted text messages, after a joint Canadian-Dutch investigation led to the seizure of servers from a Dutch telecoms company that sold secure phones.
The case is known as the Marengo trial. Dutch courts use randomly assigned words for trials. Marengo is a shade of grey.
In 2021, two men were convicted of murdering Nabil B.'s lawyer, Derk Wiersum. Trial restarted earlier this year against nine suspects accused of killing of de Vries, a well-known Dutch crime reporter, after new evidence emerged.
At least one of the men plans to appeal, defense attorneys said.
Follow @mollyquell
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
-
Haiti transitional council sworn in after months of violence April 25, 2024