The Hague councillor Richard de Mos not guilty of corruption
Richard de Mos, the leader of the largest party on The Hague city council, has been found not guilty of corruption in a case that started 3.5 years ago.
Six other defendants in the case were also found not guilty by judges in The Hague.
The court said that over €100,000 in party donations had been made by the five businessmen on trial and that De Mos had received €270 in personal gifts, mainly in the form of meals out and boat trips.
However, the court said, there was no evidence that the businessman had ‘evil intent’ when making their donations.
‘With the best will in the world, it cannot be established if, and if that is the case, how much, De Mos and his colleague’s positions were improved by party donations,’ the judge.
Prosecutors, who had said De Mos should be jailed for 22 months, claimed the business leaders were rewarded with preferential treatment by De Mos in his capacity as city councillor and alderman.
The party won eight of the 45 seats in last year’s local elections but was excluded from the coalition talks, partly because of the corruption investigation which has been running since 2019.
De Mos and his colleague Rachid Guernaoui, who was one of the six co-defendants, were appointed as aldermen, or executive officials, in the coalition that ran the council after the elections of 2018 with Groep de Mos as the largest party.
The other parties withdrew their support, forcing the two men to resign, after police raided the Groep de Mos offices and De Mos’s home in October 2019.
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