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THE HAGUE--Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk is not getting involved in the scheduling of the Bada Bing bribery case by the Court and the fact that this trial will only take place in the first months of 2015.
"It is not up to me as Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations to judge on the term that the Prosecutor's Office and the Joint Court of Justice set for the handling of criminal cases, no matter how important it is to have a timely handling," Plasterk informed the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament on Wednesday.
He stated in his short response to written questions submitted by Member of the Second Chamber Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP) that he didn't have information either on what persons were being heard as suspects by the Prosecutor's Office in St. Maarten.
According to Plasterk, it was not his business either to judge on whether one of the suspects in the Bada Bing case, independent Member of the St. Maarten Parliament Patrick Illidge, should be able to make use of the, as Van Raak put it, "royal" reduced pay ("wachtgeld") arrangement when leaving Parliament. "This decision is up to the competent authority in St. Maarten," stated Plasterk.
Van Raak had questioned the decision to postpone the Bada Bing criminal case because there would be no judge to handle the case until after January 2015. He said that this confirmed the common view that, in St. Maarten, cases against politicians were not dealt with in a speedy manner.
Van Raak had asked Minister Plasterk whether he agreed that the allegations against Illidge – accepting a US $150,000 bribe, the promotion of illegal prostitution and illegal arms possession – were serious enough to make haste with this case. He urged the minister to solve the issue of not having a judge available to handle the case sooner.
