3 ‘Unscrupulous’ Willem Holleeder also sentenced to life on appeal on appeal

Willem Holleeder was again sentenced to life in prison on appeal on Friday. The 64-year-old criminal was also found guilty by the Amsterdam court of five murders, assaults and membership of a criminal organization.

According to the court, there is sufficient evidence that the “cold and unscrupulous” Holleeder played a leading role in the purges of Cor van Hout (2003), Willem Endstra (2004), Kees Houtman (2005) and Thomas van der Bijl (2006). †

Holleeder’s involvement in the attack on John Mieremet’s life in 2002 and his death in 2005 has also been legally and convincingly proven. The same applies to the death of Robert ter Haak, who was standing next to Van Hout when he was shot.

The testimonies of Holleeder’s sisters Astrid and Sonja and his ex-girlfriend Sandra den Hartog are credible and therefore important evidence. According to the court, there are no indications that the women have an interest in making incriminating statements against Willem Holleeder.

According to the court, these statements are not only supported by the documents in the file, but also by the recordings made by Astrid Holleeder. According to the court, based on these conversations, it is clear “what Holleeder is capable of”.

Holleeder confessed murders to witnesses

According to the court, the statements of the key witnesses in this case, Peter la Serpe and Fred Ros, could also serve as evidence. This also applies to the statements of Endstra, who was later murdered. This is important because Holleeder is known to have carried out purges against these people.

The motives for the murders were possible extortion agreements, as in Endstra, the plans of the others to kill Holleeder, as in Houtman’s case, or revenge. The court found it striking that Holleeder was friends with some of the victims and that they had to pay death for this ‘pseudo friendship’.

The court places Holleeder in a criminal organization together with Stanley Hillis, who was liquidated in 2011, and Dino Soerel, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2017.

At the time of the decision, Holleeder already knew which way he was going and sometimes rubbed his hair out of the blue. After the decision, he returned to the room and said, “Okay. Holleeder immediately announced that he would go to the Supreme Court to appeal against the ruling. There, the case is not examined on the merits, but it is assessed whether everything is going well from a legal point of view.

His lawyers, Sander Janssen and Désirée de Jonge, said in response that Holleeder was of course very disappointed, but still struggled. He pleads innocent.

Holleeder was previously convicted of kidnapping and extortion.

Holleeder had previously been sentenced to eleven years in prison for his role in the kidnapping of Freddy Heineken and his driver Ab Doderer at the end of 1983. In 2007, Holleeder was found guilty and convicted of, among other things, extortion of the man in the Endstra trials. was sentenced to nine years in prison. jail.

He was arrested for the murders of Houtman and Van der Bijl in 2014. This suspicion extended to the matters at stake in this case, resulting in a life sentence.