Crown witness Nabil B. is said to have had a second telephone in his cell, according to a letter from the examining magistrate who NRC has realized. It concerns an iPhone 5, which the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) managed to unlock within a day.
The crown witness in the Marengo trial said at a hearing last year that he had a PGP encrypted Blackberry phone in his cell in the months after his arrest.
On his first phone, B. had conversations with fellow suspects, including Ridouan T., which found that his life was in danger. This knowledge played a part in his decision to become a crown witness, B. indicated.
That B. had a second phone in addition to his Blackberry indicates that he lied under oath, writes NRC. During a questioning in July last year, the crown witness denied having any other means of communication.
NFI cracked phone within a day
The NFI managed to crack the six-digit code of the iPhone 5 with special software within a day, the newspaper writes. B. appeared to have had the iPhone in his possession from September 2017 to 9 February 2018. The examining magistrate allegedly excluded the contents of the phone, except for the conversations between B. and his lawyer, according to NRC want to add to the criminal file.
Investigations into his first phone, the Blackberry, revealed that he used this device from November 12 to December 2017. At the time, the public prosecutor said that the Public Prosecution Service did not know that B. had a telephone, but it later turned out that this had been known to the judiciary since November 2017.
Telephone via lawyer to OM
The iPhone came into the hands of the OM after a split between B. and the anonymous lawyer who succeeded Derk Wiersum. Wiersum was shot dead in September 2019.
After the death of Wiersum, the iPhone would have been handed over in an envelope to the Amsterdam blanket, which passed the device on to Wiersum’s successor, writes AD on the basis of insiders.
Current lawyers: ‘No criminal offenses on iPhone’
After a split between the anonymous lawyer and B., the lawyer refused to return the envelope to B. directly, but wanted to do this through the blanket, writes NRC. When B. the lawyer threatened, the lawyer informed the case prosecutor.
Let B.’s two current lawyers NRC know that you have taken note of the letter. Their client plans to explain the existence of the iPhone at the next session. There would be nothing punishable on the device.
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) says it is currently unable to respond to the case.
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