Drug kingpin Ridouan Taghi gets life sentence in one of Netherlands’ biggest trials

Ridouan Taghi, who is a Dutch drug kingpin, received a life sentence on Tuesday (Feb 27) for a series of murders his gang committed between 2015 and 2017. The trial, which lasted six years, emerged to be one of the largest in the Netherlands.

He was accused of multiple killings being the leader of one of Europe's most feared drug gangs. He was the Netherlands' most wanted man before his 2019 extradition from Dubai.

The 46-year-old is the alleged mastermind of the Amsterdam-based "Mocro-maffia", which is regarded to be one of the Netherlands' top cocaine traffickers.

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Security around the trial remained unusually tight, with judges and prosecutors requesting anonymity. At least three people directly involved in the enormous six-year trial have been assassinated.

Despite being detained in a highly secure prison, the prosecutors claim that he managed to pull the strings from jail and kept sending secret communications to henchmen on the outside.

A prominent crime reporter Peter R de Vries was shot in the street in Amsterdam in 2021. De Vries was advising a suspect-turned-state witness in the trial, whose lawyer, Derk Wiersum, was shot dead in front of his city home in 2019.

A judge, whose identity was not revealed on a television feed, at the Amsterdam District Court said, "We are sentencing all 17 suspects. Ridouan Taghi gets life in prison."

"As suspects, you had to wait a long time for your sentencing, but that's also true for the next-of-kin of victims," added the judge.

During the hearing, 16 other suspects were handed sentences ranging between life and one year and nine months.

Taghi's sentence can be reconsidered after 25 years, but that does not automatically qualify him for release, public prosecutors told news agency AFP. Taghi did not appear in the courtroom.

(With inputs from agencies)