It he wasn't so self-assured he would not have the sheer audacity to suggest the media is doing great harm to the justice system in the Netherlands.

Without a rear end made of steel, he would not have the gall to threaten to lodge a complaint against television current affairs programme Netwerk.

Netwerk's crime? Interviewing Cees B. who served four years of an 18-year sentence for the murder and sexual assault of Nienke Kleiss in Beatrix Park in Schiedam in 2000.

B. was released in January this year after another man — arrested for another sex office — admitted killing Nienke.

Interviewed by Netwerk, B. revealed that the prosecution service (OM) knew DNA not matching him or Nienke was found on her body.

The national forensic service (NFI) was so concerned about this, its staff alerted the prosecution service to its discovery. Yet this vital evidence was not shared with the court.

Harm Brouwer, the head of the prosecution service, suggested on news programme NOVA on that the NFI may not have passed on the information on this third DNA profile to prosecutors.

NOVA did some excellent investigative work and revealed an internal memo in which Brouwer had a totally different story.

"For the first time in history, the NFI let it be known during a discussion with the officer in charge of this case that there doubts about B.'s guilt," he wrote to his senior staff.

"In hindsight it would have been better to have informed the judges about this doubt."

To the majority of the Dutch public this equates to a murderer caught standing over a dead body with a knife in his hand.

Not so, according to Brouwer's department as it rushed out a statement on Thursday insisting this "re-evaluation" was not a confession of wrongdoing.

Anyone who hoped Donner would drag the debate back into reality was severely disappointed on Friday morning.

Newspaper 'De Volkskrant' reported that not only does Brouwer have the minister's full backing, Donner does not even think the prosecution boss contradicted himself.

Donner is one of the few people in the Netherlands to believe this. An opinion poll found 70 percent of those who watched Netwerk and 50 percent who missed it believe the prosecution service consciously did not tell the court of the evidence exonerating B.

Worse, only 48 percent of the 750 people questioned said they had confidence in the Dutch legal system as a whole and a majority said they were sure evidence has been withheld in other cases.

Yet, the media is the real villain of the piece as far as Donner is concerned. The media pressure threatens to damage the image of the prosecution service even though we need its services now and in the future.

"If something went wrong in this case it is the full pressure from the media on something that demands calm discussion," he is quoted as saying in De Volkskrant.

Lets dissect this.

"If something went wrong" — an innocent man went to jail and the killer was given time to continue his evil activities.

"the full pressure of the media" — one of the media's most important roles is exposing miscarriages of justice.

"calm discussion" — there was no sign the prosecution service was about to have a pang of conscience and admit to the error.

Taken as a whole, the sentence is a two-fingered salute from a minister who does not seem to understand or care about the way this case was mismanaged.

Donner would do well to focus on the real victims in this case: the murder victim Nienke; Cees B., the innocent man convicted of her murder; and the victim or victims who may have been attacked by the real killer while B. was languishing in jail.

And what about the public which has a right to expect the guilty will be punished and the innocent protected?

Donner should at the very least spend his energy investigating what went wrong rather than mugging the media for exposing the problem.

If he isn't prepared to do that, he should resign.

[Copyright Expatica 2005]

Subject: Expatica opinion + Dutch justice system