Fmr. Taghi lawyer Inez Weski claims Prosecutor asked her to turn key witness
Ridouan Taghi’s former lawyer Inez Weski says the Public Prosecution Service (OM) asked her to turn key witness or become a “special informant with favors” after her arrest last year. That conversation with two prosecutors was “the strangest” experience during her time in custody, the former lawyer said in an interview with NRC on Friday to mark the publication of her book about her arrest and the case against her, titled Het geluid van de stilte.
The police arrested Weski in April last year on suspicion of participating in a criminal organization dedicated to drug trafficking and money laundering. The authorities believe she acted as a messenger for Ridouan Taghi, visiting him in the high-security prison and Vught and passing on his orders and messages to his contacts in the outside world. She spent 41 days in custody.
Weski thinks that the OM wanted to “wear her down” into accepting its “generous offer” of protection in exchange for information. “I was persistently told by various services of all kinds of dire tidings about danger, about threats, and that I had to accept her protection,” she told her newspaper.
Two prosecutors, one from the department that handles key witnesses and the other in charge of the protection program, visited her in jail. “I am presented with all kinds of wooly options and veiled promises, apparently in the context of becoming a key witness or providing information at least. They could do something for me. I could go abroad.” She said she cut off the conversation after about 15 minutes.
She is still indignant about what she calls a border-crossing push for her to break her professional confidentiality. “I heard them out. I thought: how dare you.” As a lawyer, she emphatically fought against the use of key witnesses in the Marengo trial against Taghi and his associates. According to her, the key witness system has nothing to do with finding the truth and provides “terminally toxic quasi-evidence” because the statements cannot be properly verified.
Weski deregistered as a lawyer in July 2023 and is awaiting criminal proceedings.
The Marengo process against Taghi and his associates concluded earlier this year. Taghi and two others were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in six assassinations, four attempted killings, and plans to murder several others. Fourteen other suspects got sentences ranging from 21 months to over 29 years in prison. A large part of the evidence was based on statements made by key witness Nabil B.
