NETHERLANDS: Inquiry into police team (1)
01 January 1991
NETHERLANDS: Inquiry into police team
artdoc March=1995
Journalists Bart Middelburg and Kurt van Es of Het Parool
newspaper published a book `Operation Delta' on 21 October in
which they detail how in 1993 the IRT (Interregionaal Recherche
Team, an inter-regional semi-permanent detective squad shut down
in December 1993) allowed a key informant (a shipping agent) to
export very large shipments of up to several thousands of kilos
of Ecstacy and Colombian majaruana to the UK, Belgium,
Scandinavia and Latvia, in most cases without keeping control
over further distribution of the contraband on the markets. The
Dutch justice department was largely kept in the dark about the
operations, as were all foreign officials. Only when UK Customs
and Excise in Sheerness discovered a tank lorry loaded with 1.5
million Ecstacy pills and their liaison officer in Holland began
to ask awkward questions were they briefed about the nature of
that particular shipment, thus narrowly avoiding an diplomatic
incident.
Also on 21 October, the Van Traa parliamentary commission, set
up in June 1994 after the IRT disaster forced two ministers to
give up office, published its findings on whether or not there
is a need for a full parliamentary investigation into the working
methods of the police. The commission concluded that such an
investigation ("parlementaire enquete") is required because of
the present vagueness and confusion about which methods are
allowed and which are not.
Commission members believe they have obtained information on
about 85% of all the covert intelligence-gathering methods
presently in use; the report gives a comprehensive but
superficial overview of them. Tactics and techniques such as the
application of electronic location devices, `fishing' in private
mail boxes, the clandestine monitoring of conversations in houses
by use of the telephone and the wide and `creative' use of
criminal informers and infiltrators have all been reported to the
commission. It appeared that those public prosecutors known to
be reluctant to use sensitive methods were avoided by police
detectives who in such cases sought out more sympathetic
prosecutors to give formal backing, a practice referred to as
`officer' shopping.'
The commission stresses that it will be necessary to interview
witnesses under oath, since several justice and police
functionaries they questioned were thought to have withheld
information or dodged sensitive issues. Also the commission wants
to come to a reliable assessment of the actual level of threat
of organized crime in Holland, since the various experts that
were consulted held widely diverging views on this issue.
Parliament is expected to decide soon whether or not the
commission's recommendations will be carried out.
Statewatch, Vol 4 no 6, November-December 1994
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