THE HAGUE--The Dutch National Police will not have autonomous authority or tasks in St. Maarten. Dutch police officers, who will be dispatched to St. Maarten to strengthen the law enforcement sector, will be added to the Detective Cooperation Team RST under the existing legal framework.

 

Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk stated this on Thursday in response to written questions of Members of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament Wassila Hachchi and Magda Berndsen-Jansen of the Democratic D66 Party.

 

Hachchi and Berndsen-Jansen sought clarity on August 20, following media reports on the visit of National Police Chief Gerard Bouman to St. Maarten in July this year, where he is said to have suggested that he didn’t wish to cooperate with the local government and the St. Maarten Police Force on allegations of corruption.

 

St. Maarten Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs and Justice Minister Dennis Richardson at the time vehemently objected to Bouman’s suggestions and attitude, which they considered totally inappropriate and disrespectful.

 

In his letter to the Second Chamber in response to the written questions by Hachchi and Berndsen-Jansen, Plasterk explained that the authority of the Dutch police officers, who will be made available by the National Police to RST, will resort under the Kingdom Police Law. The deployment of these officers, estimated to last 24 months, will be no different than has been the case since October 10, 2010, when the Kingdom Police Law went into effect, he added.

 

According to Plasterk, the cooperation between all law enforcement agencies, especially the St. Maarten Police Force, was of great importance in the proper execution of the task to combat international, cross border subversive crime. Therefore, the objective remained to work with local partners where the nature of the investigation allows this, he stated.

 

Plasterk confirmed that during talks between Minister Richardson, Dutch Minister of Security and Justice Ard van der Steur and his person on August 26, it was decided that the cooperation between RST and the St. Maarten Police Force would be intensified based on the May 24 protocol that was signed by the Netherlands and St. Maarten.

 

This protocol would remain in effect unabridgedwhere it pertained the strengthening of the law enforcement system in St. Maarten. An amount of 22.1 million euros will be made available for the period 2015-2017 to give an “impulse” to the strengthening of the local law enforcement system.

 

The Attorney General of Curaçao, St. Maarten and of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba Guus Schram, National Police Chief Gerard Bouman and President of the Joint Court of Justice Evert-Jan van der Poel have been asked to draft a “programmatical approach” for the combating of international, cross border crime.

 

Cross border subversive crime will have top priority in this approach. “This highly international and inter-regional crime is a direct threat for the countries in the Caribbean part of the Dutch Kingdom, as it is for the Netherlands. This subversive crime harms the Kingdom as a whole and therefore must be combated in the realm of the Kingdom,” Plasterk stated. 

 

The Daily Herald