Lawyer

1995

MY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WENT BACK DECADES and was extremely troubled. I had good reason to distrust these people and to fear putting my life in their hands.

In 1988, I went back to university. I studied philosophy at first, but that didn’t work. I didn’t understand the university system, and I didn’t know anyone who had experience with it. I couldn’t even find the lecture hall, and when I finally did, I didn’t understand my classes. What were these people talking about? I felt I lacked the kind of intellect necessary for keeping up with this level of thought. I quit and started studying law.

I was convinced this had nothing to do with my family and the events surrounding the Heineken kidnapping but rather with the subjects I had studied in high school. I convinced myself that I would have gotten my degree in a language or in history if that could have paid the bills. Since Jaap hadn’t proved to be a steady breadwinner, being able to make money myself was essential to me.

  

I graduated in 1995; by then, my background was proving to be somewhat problematic. It occurred to me that the positions I’d aspired to originally—public prosecutor or judge—were beyond my reach because of my family background, so I decided to become a lawyer.

Through Wim’s intercession, Bram Moszkowicz wanted to give me a chance by acting as my patron, and the wonderful Bob Meijer fortunately was unprejudiced and offered me office space. With this I’d met the final conditions that enabled me to be sworn in as a lawyer.

I invited Sonja, Gerard, and my mother to the swearing-in ceremony. My mother was proud of her daughter: I seemed to prove to her that it hadn’t been her fault that her son had committed a serious crime. She had another child on the right side of the law. I guess I restored the balance between good and evil within her family, and I was happy I could make her feel that way.

Rather naively, I also invited Cor and Wim to attend the ceremony. They’d served their time, and I didn’t want to cut them off because of their past. After the ceremony, we’d celebrate with drinks and snacks at my new office.

The day before the swearing-in, I still hadn’t received any information on the location and time. I felt uneasy and started calling to find out what was going on.

I was put through to a woman at the Amsterdam Prosecution Office. “You won’t be sworn in tomorrow, ma’am. The Justice Department has objected to your joining the legal profession.”

“What for?” I asked.

“Because you were a suspect in the kidnapping of Mr. Heineken.” I was flabbergasted. I asked if they might be mistaken and were confusing me with my brother. “I am A. A. Holleeder. I think you got me mixed up with W. F. Holleeder,” I said.

“No, ma’am, you were a suspect in this case, and the public prosecutor Mr. Teeven wants to go through the entire file before you can be sworn in. So tomorrow is off.”

She hung up. I felt dizzy. What was this? Never in my life had I ever been so much as fined. I was the mother of two children, I worked my ass off, I got an education to advance in life, and now the Justice Department was preventing me from working as a lawyer because I was related to one of the Heineken kidnappers?

This was the same judiciary that had barged into my bedroom twelve years ago, pointed machine guns at my head, dragged me from my bed, thrown me to the floor, put a foot on my neck, and locked me up in a prison cell. The same judiciary that had taken away my privacy, that had followed and monitored me. Was it all starting again, all because of a crime I had had nothing to do with? Was this their revenge for my not ditching Wim and Cor? Never had I imagined I could be condemned this way by the very top of this same judiciary, led by people with university educations, so-called enlightened people.

I didn’t feel like associating with them any longer, but I’d invested all my money into setting up my office. I had made financial commitments, such as renting my office space, and I’d just found out that Jaap had another woman on the side.

I had to move on.

  

I called Bram, and he advised me to get in touch with the dean, Mr. Hamming. He turned out to be out of the office, and his substitute didn’t want to be involved in a matter concerning this specific last name. The substitute told me to wait for Mr. Hamming’s return.

The day went by and nothing happened. I assumed I wasn’t going to be sworn in, and I was glad I had at least found out in time so I didn’t have to make a fool of myself as the only one out of twenty candidates who couldn’t take the oath.

I’d already resigned myself to that when the phone rang. “Miss Holleeder?” a voice said.

“Yes,” I said.

“This is Mr. Hamming. Your swearing-in will proceed.” Then he hung up.

At the swearing-in ceremony, he shook my hand and said, “All the best!” with a rather obvious wink.

This gave me just that bit of hope that there were people who could look past the stigma, people who judged me for who I was, not for what my brother and brother-in-law had done. But it was also clear to me that there were those at the Justice Department who’d never be prepared to do so.

In the summer of 1996, I was at work when my babysitter called to tell me ten detectives, a prosecutor, and a supervisory judge had searched my entire home and taken Miljuschka’s collection of Disney videotapes. The babysitter was just a sixteen-year-old girl, and at that moment she was with my eleven-year-old daughter—they had forbidden her to call me.

Two children, exposed to powerful people who forced their way in uninvited and turned the entire house upside down in their presence, and they hadn’t even had the decency to inform me so I could have come home to reassure the frightened kids. I inquired, but I was never given any explanation for this search and what investigation it was associated with.

I found out later that they were looking for videotapes featuring a prosecutor, presumably recorded at Cor, Robbie, and Wim’s sex club, the same one Jaap ran.

The prosecutor who came to my house, Mr. Teeven, the same person who had obstructed my swearing-in, had bought this story about the videotapes from a prostitute called Emma, in exchange for a generous amount of money as well as immunity from prosecution for a number of ram raids committed by her and her boyfriend. The tapes had supposedly been recorded by Cor and stored inside my house.

Teeven was so keen to clear up this oversexed prosecutor’s actions that he’d bought some cock-and-bull story from the prostitute and was now hitting a wall. It all turned out to be a lie, but in the meantime, my privacy had been invaded unjustly, and my babysitter and child had been terrorized in the name of justice.

I didn’t get so much as an apology.

This was the third time I’d been pestered by the Justice Department.

And it didn’t end there.

  

Starting from that same year, 2005, several people told me they’d been approached by the Justice Department requesting information about me. The department was determined to expel me from the lawyers’ register, because “such a person surely shouldn’t be a lawyer.” Such a person? As a lawyer, I took on assigned cases exclusively; I never took on any case with the slightest connection to my brother. I was completely transparent.

Who was behind this witch hunt?

There was yet more to come. On July 3, 2007, my secretary called. “Supervisory judge P. M. is on the phone. He needs you to come over.”

Come over? I didn’t understand. I hadn’t overlooked a witness hearing today, had I?

“Put me through,” I said.

“Good morning, Miss Holleeder. We are at your house,” I heard P. M. say.

“My house?”

“Could you please come by? We want to search your house,” he continued.

What was going on now? Wim was locked up, so it couldn’t be about him. I settled some things at work and drove home, where about six men stood waiting outside, the supervisory judge included.

“Could you please let us in?” he asked.

“What is this about?”

“You’ve been designated as a suspect in the laundering of the Heineken ransom.”

Was this some kind of joke? The Heineken kidnapping, again! I was seventeen years old when that took place, I didn’t have any involvement in it, and yet twelve years later they refused to swear me in, and now twenty-five years later they’re on my doorstep, blaming me for laundering the ransom?

“Are you dealing with the rest of my family as well?” I asked. Whenever they bothered one of us, they usually did the same to the others. I felt bad for my mother; she’d been through these judge-approved burglaries so often.

“No, not with your mother or sister.”

“So, this is about my brother again?” I asked.

“No, your brother is not a suspect,” the supervisory judge answered.

Now I was really confused.

“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” P. M. asked.

“I’m claiming my right to remain silent,” I replied. Forget it, I thought. As if I’d want to tell you anything. About what? About six men going through my underwear, touching my things, violating my privacy? No, I had nothing to say.

  

All the Justice Department had ever done was get me into trouble and cause misery. Why would I let them into my personal life, a personal life they’d tried to destroy? How could I know they weren’t plotting against me? So far, they hadn’t given me a single reason to trust them. On the contrary, I trusted them as little as I trusted my brother.