• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Netherlands: Police bugged and burgled

Netherlands: Police bugged and burgled

01 November 1997

During the early 1990s police officers, stationed in the Dutch province of south Limberg, repeatedly broke the law while investigating drug dealing, without being prosecuted. Their offences included falsifying statements, break-ins and illegal phone tapping. The Ministry of Justice has asked the High Court to re-examine verdicts reached through these methods, according to a statement by the Department of Public Prosecutions.

Chief Officer of Justice, H.W. Overbosch, claimed that it would not be appropriate to prosecute the officers because the evidence is too old or unreliable. He also asserted that the activities of the officers were not in conflict with rules which were in use at the time. However, he did not reject the possibility that some of the officers involved might face disciplinary proceedings.

The illegal practices were revealed after one officer, who was removed after objecting to the methods being used by his colleagues, blew the whistle on their techniques. According to him, he and his fellow officers were guilty of falsifying statements, illegal bugging, phone-tapping and surveillance operations, break-ins at suspects' residences, unauthorised activities in foreign countries and illegal extraditions.

Of the forty-two separate incidents reported by the police officer eleven were eventually investigated. One of those incidents resulted in someone being sent to prison for 7 years.

NRC Handelsblad Weekeditie, 18.11.97.