Counter-terrorism staffer accused of leaking state secrets wants new Dutch PM to testify
An NCTV employee suspected of leaking state secrets to Morocco wants Dick Schoof, the candidate for the Netherlands next Prime Minister, to testify in his trial. According to his lawyer, Abdelrahim el M. is accused of improperly collecting data for the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV), but his methods were approved by Schoof when he led the agency. Lawyer Bart Nooitgedagt will submit a request to the court to question Schoof about this, NRC reports.
It previously became known that, under Schoof, NCTV employees used fake social media profiles and accounts to monitor the posts of hundreds of activists and religious leaders. El M. was one of the employees who did this, according to NRC.
Between the NCTV’s founding in 2004 and his arrest in 2023, El M. was the agency’s main analyst in the field of jihadism, responsible for analyzing threats from radical Islam. The man independently collected a wealth of information - specifically about young people going to join the terrorist organization ISIS in Syria after 2013 - by scouring social media and consulting his network within the Islamic community and investigative services, NRC wrote. The man was so good at his job that the NCTV gave him permission to also work with other authorities, including the National Police’s counterterrorism department and The Hague police.
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) now suspects that he also collected data, including state secrets, on private devices and leaked it to agents in Morocco. The OM suspects El M. has been in contact with the Moroccan intelligence service since 1995. When he was arrested, he was about to leave for Morocco with USB sticks and SD cards containing numerous state secret documents.
El M. is in custody awaiting his trial. The next pro forma hearing in his case is scheduled for July 3. Lawyer Nooitgedagt will then submit the request to question Schoof as a witness. Schoof gave his client “a special status within which he could perform the conduct that he is now accused of in a criminal sense,” the lawyer said.
Schoof and the NCTV did not respond to NRC’s questions on the matter.
