Taghi worked on three scenarios to escape high security prison

Ridouan Taghi worked on three different scenarios to escape from the High-Security Penitentiary (EBI) in Vught, where he is detained as the main suspect in the Marengo assassinations trial. Taghi's cousin Youssef T., who was arrested at the EBI in October, had to pass on messages and orders for Taghi to arrange the prison break, NRC reports based on the criminal file in the investigation into T.

T. worked as Taghi's lawyer until he was arrested for helping Taghi prepare an escape. According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), T. provided Taghi with "unobstructed" contact with the outside world. Taghi and T. communicated through handwritten notes. T. took photos of Taghi's notes with his iPad and then passed them along through messaging app Signal, NRC wrote. The authorities found 69 photos of notes on the iPad.

These notes show that they were making arrangements to break Taghi out of prison. According to NRC, Taghi had three scenarios in mind.

Two of them had to be performed by trained professionals. "It has to be the navy seals way," Taghi wrote in one note. The police suspect that these outbreak attempts would have happened at the EBI in Vught or at the high-security courtroom in Amsterdam-Osdorp, where the Marengo trial is being held.

The third option involved taking EBI staff hostage and demanding Taghi's release. T. had to pass on orders to gather information on four EBI employees at the Tax Authority for this plan, according to NRC. In November, the newspaper wrote that four EBI employees went into hiding due to Taghi's planned escape.

According to NRC, Youssef T. told the authorities that the employees' names were never passed along and they were not "endangered by his actions."