Netherlands: Van Traa enquiry
01 July 1995
The whole affair resulted in the parliamentary Van Traa investigation. Van Traa are currently drawing up a framework of legislative guidelines under which the police will have to conduct their covert work; its final report is expected by the end of 1995.
The same Criminal Intelligence Department of the Haarlem police which ran the IRT (Interregional Recherche Team; Interregional Detective Team) informant now appears to have continued in the same manner. One of their informants, probably the same one as in the IRT affair, was handed over to the Rotterdam police where he was put to work infiltrating a major criminal organization by again working as a drug transport organizer. According to sources in the police and the public prosecutor's office, public prosecutor Mr R. de Groot who was responsible for the covert operation duly informed his superior, then-Attorney General in The Hague and current Minister of Justice Mrs W Sorgdrager of the operation in early 1994. However, after several days of silence following the first newspaper reports Mrs Sorgdrager on 20 April denied having had knowledge of the controversial operation at the time.
A reconstruction by the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool concluded that the Amsterdam Attorney General Mr R J C Graaf (count) van Randwijck in a meeting on 10 December, 1993 had insisted that the infiltration operation be continued, in spite of the formal dismantling of the IRT which was decided by the Amsterdam "Triangle" (the burgomaster, the police chief and the chief public prosecutor) only three days earlier. The idea behind Van Randwijck's position was that a sudden discontinuation of the infiltration operation would endanger the life of the informant/infiltrator. Instead of a gradual reduction of his role however, another 20,000 kilos of cannabis would be allowed to find its way through the informant's pipeline on to the criminal market in 1994. Also, in spite of formal arrangements to hand over the profits, about 5 million guilders are still unaccounted for.
Following the recent disclosures Mr Arthur Docters van Leeuwen, who was until January this year the head of the BVD security service and who is now the formal head of the five Attorneys General, has ordered a full investigation.
Het Parool; NRC Handelsblad 26.5.95.