Amsterdam top cop fired for embezzlement: report

Amsterdam police commissioner Ad Smit will be fired with immediate effect due to years of embezzlement. The top of the Amsterdam police will hand him his dismissal next week, NRC reports.

Smit was the highest police officer of the police unit in Amsterdam district Oost for around 20 years.

According to the newspaper, he regularly used police money to entertain family members, colleagues and friends. Investigation showed that he paid for, among other things, expensive meals and tickets to football matches with police funds.

The Amsterdam police commissioner was suspended last year when the Public Prosecutor decided to prosecute him for embezzlement. Smit still has the chance to object to his dismissal, but according to the newspaper, that is not expected to change anything.

Smit told NRC that he will not resign himself to forced departure.

Smit's lawyer Job Knoester called reports of his dismissal "premature" in a response to the Telegraaf. "In any case, Ad Smit knows nothing about this", the lawyer said. "It is also remarkable that the NRC reports that a possible appeal against dismissal will probably not lead to another decision. In addition to the fact that it is hard to see why the NRC can be assigned the expertise to predict the outcome of complex procedures in advance, this is misleading."

The lawyer added that Smit filed reports against the police for leaking information at several points, and this NRC report will be included.

Last year similar expense irregularities resulted in the entire central works council of the National Police resigning. The council spent a lot of police money on dinners, parties, nights in hotels, and hiring image coaches, among other things.