The bank and trust fund in St. Maarten no longer do business with him and he had to sell his shares of his Curaçao casino.

 

"The extremely damaging reports in the media worldwide have resulted in a second wave of consequences which are not entirely clear as yet," said attorney-at-law Arthur de Groot during a court injunction in The Hague on Wednesday.

 

According to De Groot, Corallo, the owner of Atlantis Casino in St. Maarten, is in a predicament because the CIBC First Caribbean Bank in St. Maarten has taken the accounts of entities to which his client is tied "under review."

 

The bank does not want to do new business with Corallo. There is a possibility that the businessman will be forced to repay his US $8.4 million mortgages. De Groot said that this would result in expensive refinancing elsewhere. An unspecified trust company has informed Corallo that it will no longer represent him after 20 years of cooperation for a family trust fund.

 

Corallo has also been forced to sell his shares in the company that owns a casino in Otrobanda, Curaçao to an "unrelated person" after the Curaçao Gaming Control Board refused to re-issue a casino licence to Corallo. "He was unable to sell these shares for the market price," said De Groot.

 

"And all that because the Dutch Government put incorrect information in a letter and refused to rectify this afterwards even though the Italian Government assumed a clear, positive position," said De Groot. Corallo wants a rectification in the media and a letter from the Dutch Government to clear his name.

 

By forcing the Dutch Government to redress the situation, De Groot and his colleague Raymond de Mooij, hope to take the sting out of this case. Corallo wants The Hague to retract the May 26, 2011 letter of Ambassador Fons Stoelinga, which states that he is involved in international drug trade, that he was an important person in the Sicilian mafia and that he launders money in St. Maarten.

 

The Italian Government has contradicted these accusations, De Groot pointed out. "Rome indicates that Corallo is totally clean and that there is no problem in appointing him in a function of the state," he said, referring to the May 2, 2011 letter of then Curaçao Prime Minister Gerrit Schotte in which the latter requested proof of good conduct to "give Corallo a prestigious and important institutional function."

 

The content of the leaked letter of the Dutch ambassador, published in several newspapers on the islands early October 2012, took Corallo by "complete surprise," said De Groot. "My client doesn't have any ambition to assume a public function and the ridiculous information on connections to crime was wrong," he said. Corallo has always received proof of good conduct and does not appear in the registrations of Europol and Interpol.

 

The ambassador's letter "curiously" leaked during election time in Curaçao, "It led to a worldwide constant flow of negative publications depicting Corallo as a Mafioso. The suspected mafia link and proposed appointment was reason for the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament to pose questions," said De Groot.

 

De Groot said the Dutch Government "grossly neglected" two of its primary tasks namely to assume a passive role as not to unjustly restrict freedom of individuals and to take on an active position to protect its citizens. "Government did things exactly the other way around. It was active where it shouldn't have been and it was passive when it had to intervene."

 

According to Corallo the Dutch Government failed in various aspects. Verbal information was gathered from the Italian Government without authorisation and noted down without checking whether this information was correct. Corallo said he was not given the opportunity to respond to the information in the ambassador's letter.

 

Corallo accused the Dutch Government of violating the principle of trust by sending the "incorrect information" to third parties, also per email and not to a limited group. The Dutch Government also breached Corallo's rights and interests, his private life and business rights. "Fact is that Corallo didn't step into the public arena."

 

Government lawyer Wemmeke Wisman refuted all accusations and stressed that the Dutch Government handled things correctly. "There is nothing to rectify," she said.