21 April 2004

AMSTERDAM — The Dutch government has been ordered on appeal by Amsterdam Court to pay EUR 45,000 in damages to suspected terrorist Mullah Krekar, who was falsely arrested in the Netherlands in 2002.

The compensation bill is about eight times more than the initial EUR 5,510 in damages Haarlem Court ordered the Dutch government to pay in August 2003, news agency ANP reported.

Lawyer Victor Koppe — who revealed on Wednesday that Amsterdam Court had recently awarded the higher damages bill — said he had demanded on appeal a larger sum because the Dutch government had treated his client "scandalously".

Krekar is the leader of the militant Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam, accused by the US of having links with terrorist network Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. US forces heavily bombarded the group's bases during the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Dutch authorities arrested the Iraqi Kurd on 12 September 2002 on suspicion of involvement in drugs smuggling. He was detained at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam en route from Iran to Norway, where he has lived as a refugee since 1991.

Krekar was detained in the Vught prison until 13 January 2003. The Dutch government rejected an extradition request from Jordan — which wanted to prosecute him on drugs charges — and unexpectedly deported him to Norway.

Norway failed to immediately detain him, but arrested him in January this year on suspicion of plotting the killing of Kurdish rivals.

But some witness accounts which led to his detention were reportedly gained by the rival party through torture and an Oslo court ordered his release in February, BBC reported.

Krekar is also fighting an expulsion order from Norway and claims he is no longer the leader of Ansar al-Islam. He also denies terrorism allegations, but the US claims his group continues to train, and possibly deploy, suicide bombers.

[Copyright Expatica News 2004]

Subject: Dutch news