Corrupt cop released over Prosecutor error
Former police officer Mark M., who was recently sentenced to five years in prison for corruption, was released from prison due to a mistake made by the Public Prosecution Service, RTL Nieuws reports.
Because M. appealed against his conviction, the Public Prosecutor should have extended his pre-trail custody. The Prosecutor forgot to do so. Due to this error, the court decided to release him in anticipation of his appeal. He was released on Friday morning, his lawyer Jan-Hein Kuijpers confirmed to RTL.
M. was convicted of corruption, computer intrusion, violation of official secrecy, money laundering, possession of false passports and participation in a criminal organization between 2011 and 2015. He searched the police system BlueView over 28,500 times and sold information on cases to criminals. M. was not supposed to have access to the BlueView system.
He was arrested in 2015 after the police found multiple documents containing police information with a fraudulent car dealer in Oirschot. Later the police also found printouts from BlueView with Mark S. - the intermediary M. used when selling police info to criminals. M.'s fingerprints were found on these documents.
M. lives in Ukraine with his wife. His lawyer could not tell RTL whether he was returning there now that he's been released.