Algeria will ignore a ruling by the Hague court. According to that ruling, the Algerian embassy must pay more than 100,000 euros to its former employee Ihssane Khachaï, but has informed the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it will not make payment. This is evident from a letter from the ministry to Khachaï, who NRC and have viewed the BOOS program from BNNVARA. The ministry has informed Khachaï that it can no longer play a role in this matter.
At the end of 2022, NRC, together with BOOS, revealed that six embassies in the Netherlands ignored crystal-clear court rulings – and employees were duped for hundreds of thousands of euros. One of the cases revolved around Khachaï's dismissal in 2021. Khachaï, a diabetes patient, was dismissed after he did not want to attend parties during corona times for fear of becoming infected. The court and the court of appeal ruled that the dismissal was unjustified and he is entitled to compensation of more than 100,000 euros.
Then-minister Wopke Hoekstra (Foreign Affairs, CDA) told Khachaï and BOOS presenter Tim Hofman that the situation was “disastrous” for him and that Algeria must comply with the legislation. Hoekstra called the fact that this does not happen “extremely uncomfortable.”
The letter to Khachaï shows that Hoekstra sent the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs a personal letter about the case in 2023. In it he stated that the Vienna Convention – which gives diplomats immunity – states that embassies must respect the laws and regulations of a host country, for example when rulings by judges on labor disputes. Algeria did not respond to the letter. But, the ministry writes, from a “verbal response from the Algerian authorities it can be concluded that payment is not being considered.”
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