After nearly four years of litigation, the verdict is actually a huge anticlimax.
240 hours of community service for the man who the prosecution alleges was guilty of ''large-scale serious fraud and corruption where millions of euros unnecessarily flowed into the pockets of property developers'.
The court left little of this accusation intact. There was no evidence of pickpocketing. The benefits for the accused ultimately 'only' consisted of a few visits to property fairs and a few nice football matches. And further, he received money for his party's election coffers on request, which money he also used mainly for those elections. It looks like Van Rey was punished mainly for violating -as a member of the confidence committee- the duty of confidentiality in the mayoral appointment.
Nevertheless, by accepting these donations, Van Rey was convicted of corruption. According to the court, he should have "had a clear idea" that the giver in question - a property developer - had the intention to use the donation to achieve a certain preferential business relationship. The fact that the gifts were made by an old friend did not alter this, as the gifts also had a business character. After all, other business associates were also present at the property fairs and competitions at the invitation of the property developer. Unlike the family trips with wives, these occasions did not involve purely friendly motives.
Many shades of grey. That is the picture that the judge said emerged at the hearing of Van Rey's actions. The accused is an administrator of the municipality of Roermond who, according to the judge, in a long series of years - often from (initially) good motives - with an eye for the interests of the municipality and its citizens, searched for the limits, almost always approached them and also crossed them many times, sometimes knowingly.
According to the prosecution - which filed an appeal in no time - the picture is not grey but black and white. "a little bit corrupt does not exist, it is corruption. Then a prison sentence should also follow". This contention is neither true nor false. There is no law that requires the court to sentence someone to jail for corruption. One form of corruption is not the other. The case is not comparable to that of deputy Ton Hooijmaijers, who is alleged to have laundered tons, among other things. Van Rey did not demonstrably become richer from the facts, and the court has to take the personal circumstances -such as age, risk of recidivism and abandonment of official positions- into account when deciding what punishment would be appropriate.
With this hastily filed appeal, the prosecution gives the impression that its main concern is to minimise the loss of face for the time being. It would have been nice if the prosecution had taken a little more time to let the 150-page nuanced verdict sink in with some self-reflection before deciding on an appeal. Indeed, the chances that the sentence will be very different on appeal can be considered very small. Especially since, after four years of investigation, recorded in more than 110 files, among others, the prosecution has failed to prove the alleged sacking. Sometimes the prosecution searches too long for something that is simply not there.
Mr D.M. Penn