Legal psychologist Peter van Koppen has serious doubts about the conviction by the Court of Appeal of Ad K. in the case of the disappearance of Patrick van Dillenburg. In a new book, Van Koppen and co-author criminologist Floor Oosterwechel are particularly critical of the use of police infiltrators who presented themselves to K. as serious criminals (the Mr Big method), writes the NRC.
Clamp
Patrick van Dillenburg was in the coke trade. On December 31, 2001, a KLM flight from Suriname arrived at Schiphol with the ex-wife of Ronnie Brunswijk, the current Vice President of Suriname. She was carrying cocaine. Van Dillenburg was waiting for her with fellow criminal Fred T., and the heavily addicted Ad K.. They get into a taxi van.
On the highway, a car jams the van, but the driver manages to escape with his passengers. Three days later, Van Dillenburg left his home in the Amsterdam Jordaan and remained without a trace.
Shredder
More than fifteen years later (from 2018), Ad K. told an undercover agent that he and Fred T. killed Patrick on behalf of Surinamese criminals. That would have happened on the industrial site on the Heining near Halfweg, on the edge of the Amsterdam port area, not far from the warehouse where the kidnapped Freddy Heineken was held in 1983.
Ad K. says that Van Dillenburg was hit three times with a bullet and then beaten to death by him with a wooden beam. The body was dumped in a pit but dug up again two months later with Fred T. and put through a shredder off the Bo-rent, a dirty job. The remains, chopped into pieces, were collected in a tarpaulin and spread over a bulb field in Noordwijkerhout.
Thus the story of K. according to the police infiltrators of the Weeks under Dekmantel unit.
Odd jobs
Last year, K. was sentenced to 16 years in prison by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. He was acquitted by the court in 2021 due to lack of evidence. Fred T. died of natural causes during the trial. The confession to the undercover agent was the basis for the conviction.
The cop who posed as a big criminal let K. do chores for him and a friendship developed with K. and his girlfriend.
Together with other undercovers, he suggests to K. the possibility that he could open a restaurant in Cambodia with his help. Mr. Big pressured K. to confess to all his criminal actions so that Mr. Big could help, and respond to any unexpected problems with the police. The confession has been recorded, but only fragments are clearly audible.
In freedom
In 2019, the Supreme Court did not reject the Mr Big method itself in the Posbank murder and the murder of Heidy Goedhart, but it did set extra strict requirements for it. The Supreme Court emphasizes that a suspect must make a statement in freedom. In the Goedhart case, the Court of Appeal was acquitted, but not in the Posbank case.
Ad K. has always said that he felt he had to impress the officers. As an arch-criminal and addict, that went well for him because he often boasted to be able to hustle his life together.
The court stated that Ad K. was not under pressure and nevertheless believed the gruesome story.
Junk
Van Koppen points out that Ad K. was ‘a 49-kilo starnakel junkie’ at the time. After research, he states that the murder story in itself is so improbable ‘that it is even more necessary to check it meticulously.’
And according to him, the police and judiciary failed to do that. For example, no further questions were asked about clients, about the story of a bullet that ricocheted off Van Dillenburg’s wet leather jacket, and about the exact place where the bloody job with the shredder happened. Bo-rent’s administration showed nothing about renting a shredder.
The police did not seriously investigate any other scenario, Van Koppen emphasizes. Lawyer Vito Shukrula has already appealed to the Supreme Court.
After several incidents, the Working under Dekmantel service was discontinued in 2022.
