Lawyer Inez Weski will spend this weekend in the cell house of a police station. She was arrested on Friday on suspicion of membership of the criminal organization of her client Ridouan Taghi. It is quite conceivable that the examining magistrate will decide next week that she should remain in pre-trial detention even longer.
By @Wim van de Pol
The suspicions against the lawyer arose in the summer of 2022 when an update became available with decrypted messages from encryption service Sky ECC.
From these messages, the detectives conclude that Taghi has succeeded in communicating with the outside world. His son passes on messages from Taghi to Italian drug trafficker Raffaele Imperiale, who is residing in Dubai. And between family members, chats repeatedly mention a woman or a lawyer who should ‘print’ or pass on something. That lawyer could very well have been Weski, the police think.
At the same time, the information that was written down by the criminal investigation department last summer does not show that this lawyer has actively done anything. In particular, it appears that making contact with her takes a long time, that she refuses and does not do things. In any case, the detective concluded that it ‘cannot be any other way’ than that Weski played a role.
The question is whether anything has been added.
‘No confirmation’
At hearings in July and October in the case against Taghi’s nephew (and former lawyer) Youssef, the prosecutor emphasized that the investigation against Weski had yielded “no confirmation” of her role in Taghi’s contacts with the outside world. Whether that confirmation is there now to a greater extent, the future will tell.
It is quite possible that the Public Prosecution Service believes that Weski could have been arrested on the basis of the investigation available last summer. But that was a big problem for the progress of the Marengo process at the time. After all, Taghi, against whom a life sentence had already been demanded, would have been without a lawyer. Another lawyer would have had to be found who could hold the plea, so that the trial against Taghi had come to a standstill for at least a year, and no conviction was forthcoming for the time being.
Two days after the completion of the last part of Weski’s plea, the arrest followed.
Indispensable link
The suspicion of membership of a criminal organization means that the Public Prosecution Service assumes that Weski was supportive of Taghi’s criminal organization. Not with regard to the murders, the Public Prosecutor emphasized, but with drug trafficking and money laundering.
To be able to prove that, someone must have been an indispensable link. That’s exactly what Weski was in the eyes of detectives. After all, she would have passed on information to the Taghi family, just like Taghi’s cousin, Youssef, who was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison.
What is meant by the other suspicion, the ‘violation of secrets’, is not entirely clear. It may involve passing on a client’s information if they are restricted.
What now?
The detectives can hold and question Weski for three days on the authority of the public prosecutor. However, it is likely that the Public Prosecution Service will subsequently also ask the examining magistrate to place her ‘in custody’ as well. Because for an action with such major social consequences – the prestige of the entire Dutch criminal legal profession – the Public Prosecution Service will want the justification of the judgment of a judge, and not just that of a public prosecutor, which is necessary for the three-day detention .
It is not unlikely that the examining magistrate will indeed extend the pre-trial detention, because the examining magistrate has already allowed the search of Weski’s office on the basis of the suspicions.
Justification
Regardless of the final outcome of the criminal case, and regardless of how strong the evidence is, the Public Prosecution Service will probably also try to get the council chamber of the court to keep Weski detained even longer after a detention. Any judgment of a judge against Weski is further justification for Weski’s arrest, and, also important for the Public Prosecution Service: publicity gain.
Even if an acquittal eventually follows, after a court has thoroughly examined the case, the Public Prosecution Service still had the justification of two judges for imprisoning one of the most prominent lawyers in the Netherlands.
Evidence
In the evidence against Weski, it will be about whether it is indeed established that she has passed on information. She could never have given the USB stick in question because Taghi is behind glass. However, it is possible that she read from the contents of a stick to her client and passed on his reaction to family. But how can that be proven?
One of the big questions in the case against Weski will be whether the detectives filmed or tapped conversations between Taghi and Weski. This is a sensitive issue because communication between a lawyer and the client may only be intercepted in very exceptional circumstances.
The question then is whether this was done legally or illegally. Weski previously pointed out that, based on information published by De Telegraaf, telephone conversations between Taghi and her office must have been recorded. According to her, that information could not have been known if it had not been tapped. Because De Telegraaf wrote that it based itself on information from the Extra Secure Institution (EBI) in Vught, Weski concluded that the EBI had been listened in.
For proof of membership of the criminal organization it will then be important whether it can be proven how long Weski would have forwarded information.
Complaint
Lawyers can also cross the line in disciplinary law. Various sources have stated to Crimesite that the Public Prosecution Service has submitted a disciplinary complaint against Weski to the Dean of the Bar Association. The procedure for this is ongoing.
In response to the criminal case against Weski, the board of the Dutch Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers says it ’emphasizes that an important principle of a fair criminal trial is that anyone charged with a criminal offense is presumed innocent until his or her guilt has been proven in law. become established. That also applies to Mr. Weski, who is known within the profession as knowledgeable and involved.’
Hammerstein
In the Netherlands, a few criminal lawyers have been arrested before, but never anyone of Inez Weski’s stature.
In 2005, the Amsterdam police arrested lawyer Evert Hingst in the drug investigation. Hammerstein went to jail on March 16, 1994 because public prosecutor Fred Teeven suspected him of money laundering of drug trafficker Johan V. (alias de Hakkelaar). Hammerstein was imprisoned for six weeks but was eventually acquitted on all counts. The court noted that Hammerstein had acted lightly in taking on the case of a Surinamese rice trader. But the disciplinary tribunal of the legal profession also acquitted Hammerstein of this.
