Home » News » LIVE | Cousin and lawyer Taghi absent from first public hearing | Inland

LIVE | Cousin and lawyer Taghi absent from first public hearing | Inland

Our reporter Saskia Bellleman is present at the case. Follow her live report at the bottom of this post.

T. was arrested in October in the Extra Secure Institution (EBI) in Vught, where he was visiting his cousin at the time. T. did so in his capacity as a lawyer. According to the Public Prosecution Service, he acted as a link between Taghi and the outside world, who would have wanted to continue his criminal business from the jail. Not only that: he is also said to have used his lawyer cousin to help prepare a violent escape.

The communication went through, among other things, notepads in which messages were shown to each other and then carefully scratched through, while the men spoke aloud about other matters. T. would also have used his iPad. The Public Prosecution Service called the communication line “very well thought out and cunning.” It was striking, according to the OM, that T. always knew “perfectly” what his cousin Ridouan was talking about. “People, names, assignments, it was all familiar to him.”

Taghi is the main suspect in the notorious Marengo liquidation process, which is already surrounded by very serious incidents: the brother (Reduan), lawyer (Derk Wiersum) and confidential adviser (Peter R. de Vries) of the key witness were murdered in the process. The affair around Youssef T. was added to that.

Criminal file

NRC Handelsblad last week revealed parts of the criminal file against T. It referred to the escape plans. The newspaper also quoted from police interrogations by T., in which he acknowledged that he was wrong and that he acted “not of his own free will”.

T. became one of his cousin’s lawyers at the end of 2020, who has been on remand in the EBI since December 2019. Over time, the police and the judiciary began to smell danger and the contacts between Taghi and his cousin became the subject of investigation. After the murder of Peter R. de Vries in July last year, this investigation would have become very intensive. Over the months, T., who had an office in Utrecht, is said to have visited his cousin dozens of times in the EBI and called countless times.

After the publications in NRC, Taghi announced through his lawyer Inez Weski that he never had any plans for an outbreak.

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