New evidence found in justice official's drug dealer payoff

New evidence that the the Public Prosecutor paid 4.7 million guilders to drug criminal Cees H. 15 years ago has been found in the criminal file of the person concerned, Trouw reports. It involves documents from the Public Prosecutor's earlier bookkeeping. Minister Ard van der Steur of Security and Justice informed the Tweede Kamer, lower house of parliament, of the discovery on Thursday. The box of financial documents were found on July 8th in the legal archives on Joan Muyskenweg in Amsterdam. This highly controversial so-called Teeven deal led to the resignation of both Minister Ivo Opstelten and State Secretary Fred Teeven in March. Teeven made the deal in 2000 while he was still a prosecutor. The exact amount of the deal was kept secret due to agreements made, but the Tweede Kamer eventually decided that they want more information. D66 Parliamentarian Magda Berndsen called this discovery "another bizarre twist" in this case. Other twists included Opstelten, who was as Minister of Security and Justice politically responsible for the deal, initially stated that the amount involved in the deal was much lower. He also told the Tweede Kamer that no evidence can be found of the transaction. But a hired company found the receipt of the deal after searching for only two days. "The Kamer has been fed rubbish by the Minister of Security and Justice", Berndsen said, according to Trouw. "There is no evidence to find, we were repeatedly assured. Now it appears that the search was not diligent at all, because the evidence was just sitting in the criminal file. Is that not about the first place you look for facts in these matters?" Van der Steur has already reported the discovery to the Oosting-committee, that is investigating the Teeven deal at the request of the Tweede Kamer. The committee will include this new evidence in its investigation.