Netherlands. The end of the historic “megatrial” after a wave of murders. Life imprisonment for cartel members

The “undisputed” leader of the gang, Ridouan Taghi, was for years one of the most wanted fugitives in the Netherlands. He was booked for murder, firearms offenses and robbery. Two other men, Said R. and Mario R., whose names cannot be disclosed under Dutch law, were also sentenced to life imprisonment. They were charged with complicity in murder, attempted murder, as well as preparation and complicity in murder.

A total of 17 people received sentences from life imprisonment to one year and nine months, announced on Tuesday. “The nature and scale of this case is unprecedented in the Netherlands,” the BBC commented. The sentence was announced by a judge whose identity was not disclosed for security reasons.

As described by the British broadcaster, the verdict closed the process, which included 142 days of hearings conducted over almost six years, 800 pages of pleadings and over 3,000 pages of documents provided by lawyers. From the very beginning, the “mega trial”, which began on March 11, 2021, was shrouded in secrecy and secured with various security measures.

The president of the court emphasized that the “Marengo” trial, named after the police operation that led to the arrests, involved “ruthless, destructive violence.” “When we read the case files, we enter a world where human life has no value,” he said.

According to the court, the numerous members of the organization included not only armed bandits and their drivers, but also corrupt officials who provided important, confidential information.

Taghi, who – according to the court – led a drug gang called “Mocro Mafia”, was born in Morocco and raised in the Netherlands. He was considered the mastermind of an international criminal organization. The 46-year-old was arrested in Dubai in 2019, where he lived. As the prosecutor’s office stated, he led the gang even from prison, passing messages to his accomplices while they were free. Taghi has consistently denied the accusations.

Under his leadership, five people were murdered within 18 months. There were also two attempted murders and more were planned. According to the BBC, an attack was also planned on a store selling high-class monitoring equipment, where gang members were regular customers.

For years, it seemed that Taghi and his gang operated with impunity. All because their crimes were shrouded in a culture of fear and silence. Judges described the ease with which Taghi decided someone should be killed as “shocking” and ruthless – in some cases children were present when their fathers were shot.

Taghi was not among the suspects who appeared in court on Tuesday. Those who did so were brought in armored vehicles to a courthouse nicknamed the “bunker” because of the security measures in place there. During the hearings, the court area was secured by heavily armed police, whose officers wore bulletproof vests and balaclavas while drones flew overhead.

The victims from 2015-2017 were people the gang suspected of providing information to the police. In 2017, a man, Hakim Changachi, was killed in Utrecht – as it turned out, by mistake, instead of an alleged informant. Shortly later, one of the gang members identified as Nabil B., driven by guilt for the murder, turned himself in to the police and agreed to be a witness for the prosecution.

The wave of murders that followed shocked the country. Three people from B’s entourage died. A week after it emerged in early 2018 that he had become an informant and entered into an agreement with prosecutors, his brother was shot. A year later, Nabil B.’s lawyer, Derk Wiersum, was murdered in front of his house. In July 2021, his confidant, an investigative journalist Peter R. de Vriesleft shot after leaving a television studio in central Amsterdam. He died shortly thereafter. After the murder of de Vries, the head of the largest police union, Jan Struijs, declared that the Netherlands “has features of a narcostate.” – Of course, we are not Mexico, we do not have 14,400 murders. However, if you look at the infrastructure, how much money organized crime earns, and the parallel economy, then yes, we have a narcostate, Struijs said.

Now B. has been found guilty of accessory to murder, but received a lower sentence of 10 years in prison due to his personal situation and the role he played in bringing his former partners to justice. The man called the case “the most sick and poisonous trial in history.”

Before reading the verdicts on Tuesday, the court said that the three murders added a “dark character” to the proceedings. They are currently being considered in separate trials.