OM comes with a sentence against De Mos and party sponsors: ‘The goal was close to the fire’

Tuesday was the first part of the OM’s indictment, today the sentence will follow. The maximum sentences for the offenses charged in this case are high, with six years in prison for participation in a criminal organization and six years in prison for bribery.

Former alderman Richard de Mos and seven co-defendants believe ‘110 percent in acquittal’, but the Public Prosecution Service argues that the politicians and party sponsors were corrupt, colluded and proceeded according to plan. Justice labels the ombuds policy of De Mos as punishable for-what-is-what-politics, countless apps and telephone taps in the 15,000-page file should support that image.

At the beginning of the closing hearing, public prosecutor Jolanda de Boer pointed out yesterday that De Mos cs are accused of ‘serious facts’ that ‘seriously jeopardize confidence in the government’. “Sponsors wanted to make the party big. And the entrepreneurs were favoured.”

Also listen to our podcast series O, o, De Mos, about the corruption affair in The Hague and the rise of Richard de Mos. Episode six will be released next week.

The Public Prosecution Service finds the file around a parking garage De Zeeheld in The Hague exemplary for the corruption case. De Mos lobbied internally at city hall for party sponsor and sympathizer Edwin Jansen van Nu Projectontwikkeling, also a suspect in the case. That’s where the seed was sown: “The Zeeheld was the reason for the emergence of the criminal organization,” says the prosecutor. And although De Mos always says he operates transparently and does everything ‘for the city’, not everything happened in openness in this case and the party sponsors mainly benefited from his work, says the public prosecutor.

In the tapped telephone conversations and confiscated chats and e-mails, suspicious entrepreneurs boast, among other things, that they have ‘made the political party great’, that the Group of Mos aldermen is ‘in our hands’, that a lot has been paid to the party and that they ‘sit close to the fire without being visible’. Asked for an explanation for the incriminating texts, the suspects now state that it was ‘bluff’, ‘boasting’, and that ‘stupid e-mails’ were sent.

Read on after the video: what is the Hague corruption case about?

On Tuesday, the Public Prosecution Service also addressed the defense put forward by De Mos and other suspects. The OM does not find it convincing that De Mos and co-alderman Rachid Guernaoui always acted in consultation with civil servants and fellow aldermen: “The norm is not whether you decide for yourself, it is about inducing others to do or not do something.” says one of the prosecutors. “We see that clearly in the night permit file: the mayor makes a formal decision, but the plan comes directly from De Mos.”

And the fact that Groep de Mos has to be creative to collect donations does not mean that corruption is allowed, according to the Public Prosecution Service. “A third of all council seats in the Netherlands are occupied by local parties, but we have no reason to assume that all those parties are guilty of corruption on a large scale.”

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The Public Prosecution Service also claims that the file is ‘interspersed’ with examples where sponsors could count on preferential treatment. An official adviser to De Mos reports in his witness interview: “Jansen, Akyol and Buis (three party donors and suspects in the case, ed.) are sacred to De Mos.”

But the crucial question for the court will soon be: did the deposits by entrepreneurs into the party treasury lead to the politicians reciprocating? Is there a causal relationship? According to the Public Prosecution Service, but the suspects firmly deny that.

The sentence will be heard in the courtroom in Rotterdam on Wednesday afternoon, next week the lawyers will hold their pleas.