Dutch news in brief, 29 September 2004

‘Terror’ family expect damages for false arrest

The lawyer for a Moroccan family wrongly arrested in a large scale police “anti-terror” operation on Sunday night in Utrecht expects that Dutch justice authorities will voluntarily offer damages and rehabilitation. The lawyer said on Wednesday she will lodge legal action if authorities fail to offer damages, newspaper De Telegraaf reported. The father, mother and 18-year-old son were arrested on Sunday in their home on their Bucheliusstraat, but justice officials have refused to confirm why their house was raided. The lawyer said the family believes the raid was prompted after a tip from a former colleague of the 18-year-old son, who had worked at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. The mother has also heard comments that a black bag with explosives was delivered to the family home. All suspects were released on Tuesday due to a lack of evidence.

ABN cuts ties to 100 banks in regulatory deal

The New York branch of Dutch bank ABN Amro has reportedly cut ties with nearly 100 banks in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean. The Wall Street Journal claimed on Wednesday that the bank faces probes by regulatory and law-enforcement officials into its dealings with the involved institutions. The US Federal Reserve has accused ABN Amro of improperly moving funds of dubious origin through the financial system, the newspaper reported. The bank quietly signed a deal with regulators in July to cut ties with the overseas banks. An ABN spokesman confirmed to CNN that the bank has closed several correspondent banking accounts in the past two years based on reasons of business strategy, regulatory considerations and the closing of inactive accounts.

Dutch reduce stake in TPG to 19pc

The Netherlands has decided to sell 57 million shares of postal and logistics company TPG to reduce its stake by 16 percent. The government will maintain a 19 percent stake of the postal company. The shares will be bought by TPG itself, in a share repurchase, Radio Netherlands reported. TPG is the postal branch of the privatised PTT. It later merged with the Australian express service TNT. The government’s decision meets requests from the European Commission, which has demanded for years that national government’s reduce stakes in their companies. TPG — better known as TNT internationally — has about 160,000 employees in 64 countries and is active in more than 200 countries.

NRC experiments with morning edition

Dutch evening newspaper NRC Handelsblad is testing a morning tabloid version this week. A total of 400,000 copies will be distributed during a three-day day sales stunt at Bijenkorf department stores, the European Journalism Centre reported Wednesday. The Bijenkorf publishes advertisements in the newspaper and is helping help to finance the project. In announcing the trial last week, the paper said the compact version of the broadsheet is aimed at highly-educated people who are not regular newspaper readers.

Subject: Dutch News