State paid Ridouan Taghi over €2,420 in compensation for wrongful restrictions in prison

Ridouan Taghi has received compensation from the Dutch State because of the additional restrictions wrongly imposed on him in prison after the arrest of his cousin and lawyer Youssef T. The lawyer was arrested on 8 October 2021 while he was visiting Taghi in the high-security prison (EBI) in Vught.

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) decided in June - after two years of “legal wrangling” - to award the compensation, according to documents obtained by the ANP. The OM’s national office confirmed this. It concerned compensation of 420 euros plus interest and compensation for lawyers’ fees of 2,000 euros.

Because Taghi himself wasn’t arrested in the case against his family member, no extra restrictions should have been imposed on him. Taghi was already in the most severe regime possible in the EBI. The additional restrictions lasted two weeks and meant that he was not allowed to call anyone except his lawyers, said lawyer Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen, who assisted him in this procedure. Van Berge Henegouwen was previously Taghi’s lawyer in the Marengo criminal case with two colleagues, but he resigned from the defense at the end of last year.

Taghi is the main suspect in Marengo. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment early this year for his involvement in multiple assassinations. The case is on appeal. There is another preliminary hearing on Monday.

Youssef T. was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for passing on Taghi’s orders from the EBI.