Lawyer Weski convicted of joining Taghi's criminal organization; No further jail time
The Rotterdam District Court convicted former lawyer Inez Weski of participating in her client Ridouan Taghi’s criminal organization. The 71-year-old woman will not go back into prison. The court’s sentence was equal to the 42 days she spent in pre-trial detention.
The court considered it proven that Weski acted as a messenger between Taghi, incarcerated in the high-security penitentiary in Vught, and the outside world, thereby enabling him to continue running his drug trafficking organization from prison. Among the evidence against her was 8,000 encrypted messages the lawyer exchanged with Taghi’s son, Faissal.
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) had recommended a 4.5-year prison sentence against Weski, but the court opted for a much shorter sentence. The court took into consideration that this case resulted in Weski losing her career as a lawyer, that she has very fragile health, and that serious procedural errors were made during the investigation into her.
Among these errors were Weski’s first nine days in custody after her arrest in April 2023. The authorities held her in a secret location in Kamp Zeist. According to the OM, this was for security reasons. But according to Weski, she was held in terrible conditions. She said she feared for her life due to her poor health and had multiple “near-death experiences.”
The Justice and Security Inspectorate investigated Weski’s claims and concluded that she was held unlawfully.
The authorities also violated the confidentiality between Weski, as a lawyer, and her client by seizing documents from her office, the court said. “That did not lead to the exclusion of evidence, but the negligence of this conduct is regarded by the court as a serious breach of Inez Weski’s duty of confidentiality.”
Weski is not the first of Taghi’s lawyers to be lured into his drug trafficking empire. Previously, another of Taghi’s lawyers, Youssef T., was convicted on the same charge - passing on messages from Taghi to his criminal organization. T. was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for this.
