PotassiumOn the morning of September 18, 2019, shortly after lawyer Derk Wiersum was shot dead in front of his home in southern Amsterdam, Onno de Jong received a call from the prosecutor’s office. Under no circumstances should he leave the office. In the evening, he was picked up home, where he and his wife could pack the most important things. The police took them to a hotel. He hid after a few days. To this day, they all live in a secret safe house guarded by soldiers from Marechaussee, otherwise they are responsible for protecting the Dutch royal family.
The murder of Derk Wiersum shocked the Netherlands. He is the key witness Nabil B.’s lawyer-he has testified in dozens of interrogations and seriously accused drug lord Ridouan Taghi. Until he was arrested in Dubai at the end of 2019, he was considered the most dangerous criminal in the Netherlands and the public enemy number one. In the so-called Marengo trial in Amsterdam, Taghi is now charged with six murders.
Onno de Jong also represented a key witness as a lawyer in a lawsuit against members of the Caloh Wagoh Motorcycle Club. Under the leadership of the club chairman, these people are said to have committed at least five murders and many attempted murders. The procuratorate assumes that they are not acting on their own, but as a service provider of the underworld. It is said that they have also received orders from Ridouan Taghi and its network.
“I think this is a surrender”
After Derk Wiersum was murdered, an anonymous lawyer took over the work, but Nabil B. soon separated. He personally approached Onno de Jong, and Onno de Jong and his colleague Peter Schouten took over the task on impulse. De Jong said in an FAZ video interview last week: “We are basically the only lawyers in the Netherlands who are still prepared to represent key witnesses.” The two declined to remain anonymous. For practical reasons, they believe that it is impossible to adequately represent the client in court and in public without knowing the client’s name and face. “If we had to complete our work anonymously, I would also think it was a surrender,” De Jong said.
The most famous crime journalist in the Netherlands, Peter R. de Vries, also joined the key witness’s new defense team. He himself was accused of participating in two murders. De Vries recently told Vrij Nederland magazine that Nabil B. asked him about his reputation as a journalist and actually begged him to help. Integrity, independence and various qualifications enable de Vries to do this: he understands how the police, the judiciary and lawyers operate. “I know everyone there, and-not unimportant-I know how the media works,” he said.
Every Tuesday
De Jong and Schouten compared this kind of cooperation with large-scale court cases in the United States, where it is common for psychologists and communication experts to cooperate with defense lawyers. “In such a process, the key witness is in a very difficult position because there are various topics that do not belong to the court, but you want to discuss with someone secretly: family affairs, security issues, your own future.” I took it all after I said it. As the Amsterdam prosecutor initially refused to accept non-lawyers from the key witness’s defense team, Schouten hired de Vries in his office.
For many years, de Vries was more than just a journalist. He started working on the De Telegraaf newspaper when he was very young, which is a tabloid under the big newspapers. He quickly specialized in crime, such as reporting on the kidnapping of brewer Alfred Heineken. A best-selling book about kidnapping was published in 1987, and he reconstructed it based on a conversation with the accomplice Cor van Hout. He became friends with Van Hout-just as he had been with other actors over the years in the incidents he reported, de Vries was blamed by critics.
