Amsterdam corrupt cop "deliberately positioned by underworld", Prosecutor suspects

The Public Prosecutor suspects that 22-year-od Mehmet A. from Tiel, a police officer in training in Amsterdam, was deliberately stationed with the police to pass on information to the underworld, the Prosecutor said in the trial against the man on Tuesday. A. is suspected of selling confidential police information to criminals. The Prosecutor demanded 45 months in prison and a ban on performing a public function for 8 years against the man, AT5 reports. 

A. was stationed as a prison guard at the detention center in Amsterdam Zuidoost early in 2017. He also patrolled the street while completing his training. According to the Prosecutor, since December 2017, A. searched the police systems for dozens of names of drug criminals, ATM bombers, and motorcycle gang members. The Prosecutor spoke of an "alarmingly large amount of illegal searches and the frequent resale of these". 

There is no hard evidence that A. was deliberately positioned with the police by the underworld, but there are indications pointing to it, according to the Amsterdam broadcaster. For example, A. was given an encrypted PGP phone by a criminal, with which he could share police information. Investigation showed that A. searched the police systems thousands of times, almost always when he was off duty and for reasons that had nothing to do with his police work. 

According to the Prosecutor, A. also searched for information about Limburg criminals linked to outlaw motorcycle gangs No Surrender and Satudarah. A striking detail is that a prominent member of No Surrender in Limburg was forced to leave the motorcycle club last year, because other members had heard he talked to a local police officer. Investigation showed that A. passed this information on to the club, according to the broadcaster. The police later also found photos of printed pages from an ongoing police investigation at No Surrender. 

A. was arrested in November last year. The police received an anonymous tip early in 2018 that a police officer had been bribed by two brothers from Tiel who are active in the cannabis world. That turned out to be true. The cop told the brothers that there was an investigation against them. One of them fled to Morocco. The other brother later also fled after finding out that detectives were keeping an eye on him.

According to the Prosecutor, A. held a kind of consultation hour in his car, during which he sold confidential police information. He charged 250 euros per name searched in the police system, and gave discount for more names. For example, at one point he was paid 1,250 euros for information about six people. 

The police officer in training confessed to selling information to criminals, though he said he was threatened into doing it. For this reason, his lawyer asked for a moderate prison sentence of 12 months, half of which conditionally suspended. The lawyer also asked the court to take A.'s young age into account.