Translated from Dutch
Justice wants the leaders of motorcycle club Bandidos to go to jail for years. A total of 25 members of the motorcycle club are in court, 19 received their sentence today.
President Harrie Ramakers came off the best of all suspects with a demand of more than eighteen months. Sentences between two and a half and five and a half years were demanded against four other leaders. According to justice, they have more to offer than the president.
Criminal organization
The motorcycle club was mainly active between 2010 and mid-2015. According to the OM, the Bandidos chapter Sittard is a criminal organization, whose members were guilty of money laundering, theft, cultivation of cannabis, soft and hard drug trafficking, open violence, possession of weapons and ( attempted extortion.
The Bandidos behaved intimidating and cherished their violent reputation, according to the judiciary. According to the judiciary, the members of the Bandidos spoke with enthusiasm about the use of violence.
The toughest sentence was for a 57-year-old man from Valkenswaard who allegedly committed an attempt to take the life of a member of a competing motorcycle club.
In addition to the leaders of Bandidos, 14 suspects were told their sentence for participation in a criminal organization today. Almost all of them are (former) members of the motorcycle club. One would have played a greater role in incidents than the other, so that the punishment requirements vary from eight months to more than two years in prison.
In all cases, the Public Prosecution Service applied a penalty reduction of an average of 20 percent because the case has already been running for six years. The case of the six other suspects will be discussed in May. Their cases have yet to be dealt with.
Skinny substantiation
According to lawyer Gitte Stevens, who represents several suspects, the demands are ‘completely disproportionate’. She points to the elapsed time, but also to the meager substantiation by the judiciary in her eyes. “The Public Prosecution Service wrongly states that individual cases are club cases and thus substantiates the suspicion of the criminal organization,” she told 1Limburg .
Incidentally, the judiciary also thinks that it cannot prove everything by far. For example, the prosecution declined to prosecute various alleged extortions, involvement in drug discoveries and violent thefts.
In the near future, the defendants’ lawyers will have their say. The judge will probably rule on the case at the beginning of July.
