National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

eceive protection, as there is always a certain safety risk.
Contrary to what some people expected, the tougher approach to fighting
crime that was adopted recently has not resulted in more threats. This makes
the expectations for the future uncertain.
Intimidating and threatening witnesses and co-suspects
In some cases the evidence hinges on witness statements. There is a major
interest in ensuring that witnesses do not talk to the police or the judicial
authorities. This will undoubtedly still apply in the future. Due to the rise in
the number of protected witnesses and the priority that will probably also
be assigned in the coming years to the fight against organised crime, it
can be assumed that the scale of intimidating and threatening witnesses
and co-suspects will increase in the next few years.
Spreading disinformation
Stories about organised crime are very popular among the general public. This
will not change much in the foreseeable future. As a result, there will also be
plenty of opportunities in the near future to spread false stories. In this regard,
it is important to state that the research shows that journalists are still able to
gain access to criminal files relatively easily, despite the Dutch Bar Association
tightening the rules of conduct relating to media contact in January 2006.
5.7.7 Conclusion
Intimidating and threatening people who work for the judicial
authorities
In the past four years intimidating and threatening people who work for the
judicial authorities as a deliberate strategy to pervert the course of justice only
occurred once – in the form of a series of letters, the last of which was
accompanied by a number of bullets. Incidentally, a police officer was threatened
in that case as well. There are no indications that the number of threats of this
kind will increase in the next few years. The communication policy of the Public
Prosecution Service has improved. This improves the safety of public prosecutors,
even though a certain occupational hazard remains. In the future there will still
be a risk that people working for the judicial authorities will be intimidated or
threatened (or that attempts will be made to do so), but the expectation is that
this will be no specific threat to Dutch society in the next four years.
Intimidating and threatening witnesses and co-suspects
The increased number of witness protection programmes, combined with the
increased attention paid by the police and the judicial authorities to the fight
210 National Threat Assessment 2008 – Organised crime