In November last year, the 24-year-old IT consultant flew to London with friends for a bachelor party. As soon as he steps off the plane, a group of military police officers in civilian clothes arrive. Would he like to come along? He has to hand over his passport, his phone is wrapped in foil. “At first I had to laugh,” says R., the consultant. “I said: listen, this is a misunderstanding, I have been acquitted! Just look on Google.”
But he has to sit in the locked room answering questions for hours. What are you doing? How do you view Jews? What do you think about violence against people who think differently? R.: “Then I didn't find it so funny anymore.”
He is released five hours later. The bachelor weekend can begin.
On the way back he decides to take the bus. He is taken off the bus in Calais. He is not allowed to enter France. “Take the taxi back to London,” says the customs officer.
R. no longer ventures on such a trip. “I don't know if I'll ever be able to travel again.”
Acquitted of terrorism
R. is one of nine men who were acquitted of terrorism a year ago. In 2021, the friends from Eindhoven were arrested because the Public Prosecution Service thought they wanted to commit a terrorist attack. They would train for jihad in a garage. Afterwards it turned out that there was no evidence for this. Although the men did watch videos of the IS terrorist group and used threatening language, the judge said they were not really radicalized. The largest terrorism trial in recent years ended in a fiasco for the Public Prosecution Service, which did not appeal.
On Monday, the men faced the same prosecutors again in the same Rotterdam court – this time to demand compensation for the time they were wrongfully detained, most of them eight months. The Public Prosecution Service wants to settle the case with a standard compensation, which is often used in acquittals. That amounts to 130 euros per day in jail. The suspects are demanding double that amount, plus compensation for the psychological and financial consequences the case has had for them. They were fired, suffered a delay in their studies and were diagnosed with psychological complaints. Some want 200,000 euros from justice, others put it at around 40,000 euros. For the entire group together, this concerns a claim of close to 1 million euros.
According to the Public Prosecution Service, the men are not entitled to this. There was enough reason to keep them in pre-trial detention all that time. The officers also see “no causal link” between the criminal case and most of the problems the men have faced since then.
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After the hearing, the people of Eindhoven are still unable to reach an agreement. “How can the Public Prosecution Service maintain that this is all our own fault?” one shouts indignantly. They would like to talk about what their lives are like after the acquittal. Anonymous, with only the initial of their name, because the biggest problem they face is that they have lost their anonymity.
During the criminal case, their full names appeared on the Internet, after which employers intervened. Two brothers had well-paid jobs at technology company ASML. As soon as they were released, they were put on the street. Finding a new job was virtually impossible, says H. (33), one of the brothers. “Anyone who types your name into Google will immediately see who you are.”
H. wrote to Google to have their names removed from the search results. Most of them have now managed to disappear from Google. Their full names are still on weblog Geenstijl. They asked the website to remove their names, but they say there was never a response.
H. has now found work. He keeps his background secret there. “I can't tell you anything about my past. The moment I do that, I will immediately lose my job.”
R., the consultant, also fears that they will discover something about the terror case at his work. This happened after just one month at his previous job as a freelance supervisor. “After that I was not called up again.”
'There must be something'
The men have also lost many friends. “You are invited to far fewer things,” notes O.(22), a former college student.
R.: “Then you only hear afterwards that a good friend has suddenly gotten married.”
O.: “On the one hand, I understand it.”
R.: “They think: something must have been wrong. Because you don't assume that someone will be arrested for nothing. Where there is smoke there is fire, they say.”
And there was plenty of smoke in their business. The Public Prosecution Service presented one alarming finding after another, such as that one of the suspects had shouted during a movie night that he wanted to “kidnap and behead” PVV leader Geert Wilders during a live stream. Their lawyers also understand that the Public Prosecution Service made an arrest after that movie night. But it then took almost two years before it was determined that the men had no terrorist intentions. According to them, the threatening statements were not meant seriously, but were bad jokes.
Several tapped conversations appeared not to have been recorded properly, expert witness Najib Tuzani noted. According to the expert, the “laughable setting” in which many comments were made, such as the one about the beheading during the movie night, was especially missing from the representation of the conversations.
That is why the lawyers argue that the suspects have been detained for so long in the Terrorism Department (TA) in Vught partly due to the actions of the Public Prosecution Service. That would have left many traces.
Permanent observation
At the TA, prisoners are under permanent observation. The location is packed with cameras and microphones. In reports they received every ten weeks, they could read on which days they had made a sandwich, whether they had taken a towel to the shower and how messily their bed was made.
It is an experience that is difficult for them to lose. At home they still feel like they are being watched and listened to, they say.
S. told the hearing that living among “convicted terrorists” had a “major mental effect” on him. “The most intense thing was that they really showed it off. They came to you with their file to test you: are you on our side or not? They told about all the terrible things they had done in Syria. I had to pretend that I was okay with it, to avoid confrontation.”
Y. (28) is most concerned about his future. His wife was pregnant when he was arrested and their daughter has now been born. “When she delves into her past later, she will find out that Dad was in the terrorist department.” He doesn't know how to explain that yet.
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