Counter-terror worker caught with 46 TB of data, over 900 state secrets at Schiphol

When an employee of the National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) was arrested last year, he was caught with 46 terabytes of data including 928 documents with state secrets, prosecutors alleged during the first public hearing in the case. The documents included 345 from the AIVD, the Dutch civilian intelligence agency, and 65 from the MIVD, the Dutch military intelligence service, the prosecutor said in the secured courthouse in Rotterdam.

He is suspected of leaking state secrets to Moroccan intelligence services. The total volume of data is "equal to around 11.5 billion A4" sheets of paper, the prosecutor explained. The investigation into all those documents will take much more time. He argued it is certain that hundreds of these documents contain state secrets. "The security of the Dutch state was at stake."

Ab el M., the 64-year-old suspect from Rotterdam, held various positions at the NCTV for several years, amongst them as an analyst. The Public Prosecution Service started an investigation in October of 2023 after an official report from the AIVD which stated that he had printed out copies of state secrets and other information. That had been happening from at least April of last year.

Shortly after the AIVD memo, both El M. and a colleague were taken into custody. El M. was arrested at Schiphol Airport when he was planning to board a flight to Morocco. The prosecutor said El M. had "a large amount of data carriers with him" at the time.

The Public Prosecutor claims that El M. printed the secret information at the office in The Hague, then allegedly scanned the files at home. He is accused of trying to fly to Morocco to transfer the information to his contacts in the intelligence service there. When he was given another position in May of last year and was not authorized to print documents anymore, he apparently asked a colleague to print items for him.

This woman is also a suspect in the investigation but is not currently in custody. El M. is still being held in pre-trial detention and will remain jailed until the next hearing in May. The case details will not be handled at that procedural hearing.

Given El M.'s position, the suspect's lawyer called it "incomprehensible" the court held the hearing in public. "My client is being framed, and the reasons are still unclear to us."

El M. has thus far exercised his right to remain silent. He does feel the need to respond in detail, said his lawyer Bart Nooitgedagt, "but he has a duty of confidentiality from which he should first be released." According to the lawyer, there is "a minefield that extends far beyond the court."