Questions and answers about the Kalpoes new court case

that is, if we believe Freedom of Blog when they report that the 2 Kalpoe brothers will be asking the judge to remove them as suspects.

A few members of BFN have been debating this question and I thought I would have a peruse through the legal books of the Netherlands in an attempt to find the answers (where possible) to a few questions that were asked and a few that I can think of myself.

Question 1. If they are no longer suspects, can they what they know?

answer: They may no longer be (active) suspects but that does not mean they cannot be prosecuted. If they had knowledge of criminal acts or if they actually participated in criminal acts then they still can be prosecuted for them.


Question 2. The suspects lied, they obstructed the investigation, how can they possibly be cleared?

answer: They may have lied, but even lies that they made as witnesses are seen as statements made by the suspects because they later became suspects. And as we know, lying to the police as a suspect is not illegal. Now lying under oath would have been a crime, even when one is a suspect. But I am pretty sure they have never been questioned under oath and thus perjury charges are impossible.

And as any obstruction is concerned, it would have been the result of statements that they made as suspects, and to me it is unclear whether or not they can be prosecuted for that (my legal knowledge is not that specific). But then again, the punishment for that is only a few months in jail and should not radically change their chances of being cleared from being a suspect in Natalee's disappearance.


Question 3. The suspects lied, they got 2 innocent men arrested. Isn't that a crime?

answer: falsely accusing someone and landing them in jail is a crime in the Netherlands that does carry prison sentence for the perpetrators. But for that to be possible in this case would only be possible if Deepak and Satish accused the 2 security guards of having comitted a crime. Something that they did not do. They only said a man, a black man to be specific, with a walkie talkie approached Natalee and talked to her. That the police later arrested 2 security guards may have been the result of Deepak and Satish mentioning that they had seen a security guard talking to Natalee but nothing else.

The police did the rest completely on their own. Even though they did/should have known that the videotape showed no Natalee and no security guard. For this mentioning of the security guard the Kalpoes cannot be prosecuted because they did not accuse this person of doing something illegal.


Question 4. How will this request for removal as suspect work?

answer: The lawyer for the Kalpoes will petition the court to remove his clients as suspects in the case (using article 36 WvSv). The judge will do a few things before he makes his ruling. The judge has to inform himself/herself about how far the DA is with regard to prosecuting the suspect(s). If the DA can reasonably prove in court that prosecution of this case is still on the table with regard to these 2 suspects, then a judge can put the request by the laywers of the suspect(s) "on hold" for a reasonable amount of time (not talking 5 years or several decades here but as long as he deems fit).

This would mean that the request for being removed as a suspect will be taken at a later date when the judge becomes convinced that prosecution is not going to take place.


Question 5. What will most likely happen in this case, with the Kalpoes?

answer: That is a tricky one. Although the Kalpoes initially lied to the police (making them viable suspects) in the beginning of this case, within the first 2 weeks of the investigation, when they were requestioned, they did tell what likely could be the truth. They were so effective in their testimonies that they were released months before Joran was released.

So, one might contend that the statements they had given could not be broken by the police and that with no forensic evidence of a crime, or any testimonial evidence implicating them of any crime, they have a good chance of being stricken off as suspects in this case.

The judge might decide to "hold" the case over if the DA has evidence that suggest a prosecution of the 2 is in the works but so far we have seen little or no evidence of that.


Question 6. Will they be able to sue for damages because they were held for a lot longer than Paul van der Sloot? And if they do, do they stand to make a substantial amount of money?

answer: That is highly likely. But, unlike Paul van der Sloot (of which three courts found that there were no legal grounds under which the police could have arrested him), the Kalpoes have a big problem. They lied to the police, hindering the investigation by their lies and they continued to lie when they were arrested as suspects.

That means that they bear a great responsibility for their detention themselves. Also the loss of their image/reputation is less than that of Paul van der Sloot and again, they damaged their image/reputation by having lied and that cannot be blamed on the police/government.

So all in all, their compensation will most likely be nowhere as high as Paul van der Sloot got.


Question 7. Is there a dutch law that says that someone is culpable the last person to be seen with a someone that goes missing?

answer: To the best of my knowledge (and I did check our criminal law books on this) there is no such law. And that would be logical because one can only be held culpable for something if one is found culpable or guilty. And one cannot be guilty/culpable by default. The state has to prove legally and convincingly that someone is guilty/culpable.

Just like in the US legal system the burdon of proof has to be provided by the State. Any suspect is innocent until proven otherwise and reversal of evidenciary obligations is just not allowed in our system. And it would indeed be crazy to create a legal system where it is up to a suspect/accused to prove his innocence, and we might be a bit daft in the Netherlands, but our legal system does not work like that.


Question 8. What if this law existed and they have subsequently changed it?

answer: Suspects can only be prosecuted using laws that were in our legal code books when the crime was comitted/when he was arrested. Laws that are subsequently removed should have no bearing on the prosecutions chances for conviction because the law was valid when the crime was comitted. But as such a law never existed to begin with, it could have never been removed ;-)

Anyway, as said, one can only be prosecuted for crimes that are in the legal books at the time of the crime. This to prevent politicians from later making illegal something that was not illegal previously. In that case only people arrested after the law became legal can be prosecuted for it. Backdating laws to enable prosecution of crimes is not possible.


Question 9. Does that mean that they have been cleared of all wrong-doing and cannot be prosecuted anymore?

answer: No, to get a misunderstanding out of the way, the Kalpoes will not be cleared. They will be removed as suspects.

And as they aren't cleared they can still be prosecuted at a later date. I have looked long and hard in the legal books of the Netherlands and if I am not mistaken I have found the corresponding law with regard to this. It is also part of the WvSv (legal book of court/legal proceedings) and it is in article 255. This article says that those who were removed as suspects can only be re-adressed as suspects if "new facts" come to the table.

And if I understand correctly, those new facts in the lawbook are discribed as:
statements of witnesses or the suspects, or court documents/case files or police statements, that were discoved/gathered at a later date or had not been investigated previously.

And that would mean (again with my limited legal understanding) that any new evidence found by the dutch police or facts uncovered by the dutch police which were already known but not investigated previously, can still lead to arrests and prosecution of the Kalpoes.


THE NEW E-MAIL WRITING CAMPAIGN I MENTIONED YESTERDAY

That is still in the pipeline but it will take me at least one or 2 more days to get all the e-mail adresses for all the politicians we should target. And I also have to construct a text that uses the proper terms and remarks one would adress a leader of a political party with.


Rammstein