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On Thursday, the Public Prosecution Service showed images for the first time in the Amsterdam court that were made of the visits of lawyer Youssef Taghi to his cousin Ridouan Taghi in the extra-secure institution in Vught. The Public Prosecution Service said it considered it important “to demonstrate the secrecy and shrewdness of the communication.”
The images were shot from above. The lawyer and his cousin can be seen in turn, filmed on their crowns. The conversations are difficult to understand, are fragmentary and are often about small things. According to the Public Prosecution Service, the actions of the cousins are more significant. The footage shows Youssef Taghi writing on a notepad and pressing the text against the glass that separates him from Ridouan Taghi. Ridouan Taghi makes notes on a large writing pad, and then shows that text to his cousin.
Violent Escape
The written talks concern, among other things, an intended violent escape of Ridouan Taghi from the EBI. The cousins trade options. The camera with which the encounters were filmed zoomed in on the texts. Ridouan Taghi writes that his liberators must be “real pros” and must know everything about the way things work in the EBI. “They have drones.”
He also writes that an escape can best take place when it is raining. To make it even more difficult for pursuers on the slippery roads, oil has to be poured over the road surface. There is also a lot of gestures to each other. You can see how Youssef Taghi makes a gesture as if he is holding a large firearm in his hands, and then a pistol. On the other side of the glass, Ridouan Taghi makes shooting gestures.
Lawyer Youssef Taghi expressed his fear of discovery: “Suppose it ever comes out… It is established that information has been leaked,” he writes. That fear turned out to be justified. The lawyer was arrested on October 8, 2021, and has been behind bars ever since.
Youssef Taghi had contact with Ridouan a total of 98 times, both in person and by telephone. He visited him a total of 22 times. Those visits lasted three to four hours, and sometimes the lawyer even visited the EBI twice a day.
Research
Justice received information much earlier that Ridouan Taghi somehow managed to have contact with the outside world. The investigation took months. “Until there was only one unimaginable option left: the lawyer,” the prosecutors said. A examining magistrate gave permission to film the meetings on September 14, 2021.
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Lawyer Youssef Taghi visited his cousin a total of 22 times in the EBI in Vught.
Ⓒ ANP / Robin Utrecht
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Youssef Taghi himself decided at the end of the afternoon yesterday that he would not attend the session, because of showing the visualization. “He doesn’t want a show trial and a trial by media,” said his lawyers Haroon Raza and Yassine Bouchikhi. The defense was also only told on Wednesday afternoon that the Public Prosecution Service intended to show the images during Thursday’s session.
Their protest was set aside by the court, because a representation in photos and texts is already in the file. “So the surprise is minimal.” However, the court found that the Public Prosecution Service “should have taken the royal road” by first making the visualization available to the court and the lawyers of Youssef Taghi.
At the request of the lawyers, the court decided to postpone the hearing until next Friday, to give them the opportunity to view not only the selection of the Public Prosecution Service, but all recordings of the conversations with Youssef Taghi.
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