Dutch lawyer murderer sentenced to 30 years in prison

Lawyer Derk Wiersum was a key witness in the trial of the country’s biggest drug lord when the 44-year-old father of two was murdered outside his Amsterdam home in September 2019.

Prosecutors had asked the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to change the 30-year sentence handed down last October to life imprisonment.

On Thursday, the court dismissed the appeal.

Two men, named only as Moreno B. and Guillermo B. by the Dutch media, killed Wiersum with “cold-blooded and appalling professionalism that can only be described as unscrupulous,” the Court of Appeal said. .

“Society should be protected from both men.”

“The purpose of punishment is to deter others from committing the same type of crime,” the court said in a statement.

However, “unlike the public prosecutor’s office, the court has determined that this goal does not justify the imposition of life imprisonment,” he added.

Wiersum was the state’s lead witness attorney in a high-profile case against Ridouan Taghi, once described as the most wanted drug lord in the Netherlands.

Wiersum’s client Nabil B. became a State Witness after surviving an assassination attempt.

The Moroccan-born Taghi and 16 other men are currently on trial for a series of assassinations in recent years, with Taghi’s organization described by prosecutors as a “well-oiled killing machine”. explained.

The murders are linked to the burgeoning cocaine trade in the Netherlands and to an international cartel that has spilled out of Dubai.

Taghi was arrested in Dubai in December 2019 and extradited to the Netherlands.

The Netherlands’ most famous crime reporter, Peter R. de Vries, was also shot dead in central Amsterdam on his way out of a television studio following an interview in July 2021.

De Vries was a close friend and adviser to Nabil B. in the case against Taghi.