Dutch Nato official convicted of fraud

27 January 2004

AMSTERDAM — Haarlem Court sentenced 50-year-old Dutch Nato official Jan Willem Matser, of the Belgian city of Wemmel, to a jail term of 14 months on fraud charges on Tuesday.

Co-accused 64-year-old P. F., of Uithoorn, and the 60-year-old W. van V., of Nijmegen, were respectively sentenced to jail terms of 15 and 18 months of which three months was suspended, news agency ANP reported.

All three men were convicted of fraud charges, but were acquitted of allegations they were members of a criminal organisation. The prosecution had previously said it would drop its charges of money laundering leveled against Matser, saying it had failed to prove the existence of the drug trafficking funds.

The court found the men guilty of fraud with forged securities and attempts to defraud companies and members of the public of money with the forged documents.

All three were arrested at the start of last year after a forged receipt for USD 200 million, which had been sent from Columbian, was seized at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

It was initially alleged that Nato East European affairs advisor Matser was planning to cash the false Colombian bank bonds for investments in Romania, but he denies he knew the securities were not genuine.

Both Matser and W. van V. were immediately released after the court’s ruling because their sentences were equal to the terms served in pre-trial detention.

Subject: Dutch news