The Public Prosecution Service has dropped the criminal case against the man, who was arrested because of an incident on the A2 surrounding the high-security transport of crime reporter John van den Heuvel. The man was wrongly suspected of preparing serious criminal offences.
The 36-year-old man was arrested on Thursday 6 January for his driving behavior between Amsterdam and Utrecht. He drove way too fast and kept too little distance. He was held for several days. The Public Prosecution Service informed him today that he will not be prosecuted further.
“In retrospect, he was wrongly suspected of preparing serious criminal offences. That does not alter the fact that the initial suspicion and arrest of the man was based on good grounds, given his irresponsible and dangerous driving behaviour,” said the Public Prosecution Service today.
Balaclava found
The man arrested at the time had stated to the police that he was not aware that it was the crime journalist when he entered the A2 at high speed from the A9. At the start of the section control near Vinkeveen, he was driving at the indicated speed. Van den Heuvel later reported that a balaclava had been found in the suspect’s car and a crypto telephone that is often used by criminals.
According to Veerle Hammerstein – the suspect’s lawyer – the latter was absolutely wrong. He had two normal phones with him: a business phone and a private phone. He did have a balaclava with him, which he kept in his lunch box, according to the lawyer. ,,He is a mechanic and had just worked in crawl spaces. He uses a balaclava to protect his face,” said Hammerstein.
Van den Heuvel is being secured in connection with his work for De Telegraaf, among others. At the end of 2018, he was in so much danger that he was unable to work for three months at RTL Boulevard, where he explains criminal cases. Even after the murder of his colleague Peter R. de Vries last summer, he did not appear in the program for some time.
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