A new attempt to find lawyers willing to represent Ridouan Taghi has failed, leaving the convicted gangland boss without counsel and his appeal at a standstill.

Every Dutch criminal defence lawyer was approached under a new framework drawn up specifically for “high-impact cases”, but all have declined, citing both the impact of the case and the conditions they would have to work under, the council of deans (the Dutch bar’s coordinating body) said a statement on Monday.

An eight-week extension granted to the search in March produced no result.
Taghi was sentenced to life in 2024 for his role in six gangland murders and four attempted killings, in what is known as the Marengo trial.

He is appealing the conviction, and the Amsterdam court of appeal has said it will discuss the situation with him directly at an open hearing scheduled for later this month.

A unique impasse

“If no one steps up, you are stuck in an impasse,” Sven Brinkhoff, professor of criminal law at Amsterdam University, told current affairs programme Nieuwsuur.

Courts cannot force a lawyer to take the case, he explained, nor can they halt proceedings, because access to counsel is a fundamental right.

One option, Brinkhoff suggested, is for the judges themselves to take on parts of the defence’s role, revisiting the points earlier counsel had raised. Higher courts would then have to assess whether the trial had been fair.

Taghi trial

Taghi has been through a string of lawyers, several of whom have ended up as criminal suspects themselves. His cousin Youssef T was jailed for 5.5 years in 2022 for passing messages from him out of prison.

Inez Weski, who represented him for years, was arrested in April 2023 on similar suspicions; prosecutors demanded she be sentenced to 4.5 years last month, for which a court decision is expected in May. Vito Shukrula, Taghi’s most recent lawyer, was arrested in April 2025. Other potential replacements have all withdrawn.

The council of deans released Monday’s announcement through a hired communications agency, with no questions taken from journalists. “That again shows the threat is still felt by all parties so strongly that they prefer to put out such a message anonymously,” Brinkhoff said.