Four police officers of the Basic Team Horst/Peel and Maas, the Netherlands to be prosecuted

[Peter King]

Rather than having an internal affairs department, the Dutch police has the National detective unit which investigates all Dutch police forces when they have fired their gun and cases of fraud and unlawful behavior of Dutch officers.

After an long investigation 4 officers (3 men and 1 woman) are to be investigated for abuse of power and legal abilities, breaking and entering in computers and making false police reports. The crimes took place between 2015 and 2019, the possible crimes came to light in the beginning of 2019. All in all the national detective unit went through 1300 cases to find the evidence against the officers. The investigation started when the suspicion arose that police reports had been doctored, house searches had not happened in accordance with the rules and violence against arrestees.

The public prosecution said that the illegal actions of the police had destroyed 10 prosecutions. Because of the irregularities/unlawful acts the prosecution ended these criminal cases and when there had already been a verdict by the judge, it was decided to act on the verdicts and the verdict was scrapped.

 

[Peter King]

Warrants to enter houses (which these officers have seemingly violated) normally will never be done between midnight and seven in the morning. There are exceptions but that usually has to do with special circumstances (life and death, serious harm) and usually the owner has to be home for the search to happen because it is made out to a name/names.

If houses are to be searched to seize evidence usually a judge has to be present (the judge commissioner), the police can enter the house prior to the judge commissioner arriving but that is only to freeze the evidence in place. They cannot start searching and taking evidence. That is only allowed to be done by the judge. The judge has to be present for as much as possible of the search or at least have control of the search. Usually that means that if a judge says the computers, USB sticks/other information carriers and business papers can be seized the police then cannot seize anything beyond what the judge commissioner says.

No knock raids like in the US would not be allowed in the Netherlands (in normal situation, maybe to save lives they can go in without a warrant) but no knock warrants, I have never heard them happening in the Netherlands.