Tap recordings made of just eight confidential conversations between lawyers and defendants in a major gangland killing trial have not been destroyed as required by law, the public prosecution department told news agency ANP on Monday.

This weekend, newspapers claimed secret recordings of 177 phone calls had been kept. In total, 170,000 phone conversations were recorded during the investigation.
A department spokesman said the recordings had been kept in a safe of a senior legal official in case they were needed for a double check, ANP reported.

Tapes destroyed
Tapping phone conversations between suspects and lawyers is not illegal, but the tapes must be destroyed and information may not be used in building a case against the defendants.
The trial of 10 men and one woman charged with at least seven gangland killings resumed in the Amsterdam high security court on Monday.
Last week judges threw out the case against three people said to be involved in a massive financial swindle centred on tulip bulbs because phone recordings had been kept. The trial of a number of Hells Angels collapsed for the same reason last year.