Dutch journalist Bram Vermeulen, who is exceptionally well-informed about Guus Kouwenhoven, wrote an interesting and highly recommended article which was published by one of the main Dutch newspapers, de Volkskrant, ‘Guus Kouwenhoven was on the run longer than Bolle Jos. But the justice system forgot about him.’ (‘Guus Kouwenhoven was langer voortvluchtig dan Bolle Jos. Maar Justitie vergat hem’).
His article, and the headline in particular – ‘(…) the justice system forgot about him (…)’ – raises an important question for me.
Did the Dutch justice authorities REALLY ‘forget’ about Guus Kouwenhoven, the convicted war criminal who was on the run for nearly ten years? Or is there another explanation for the fact that Kouwenhoven was ultimately never extradited to the Netherlands?
How can it be explained that Kouwenhoven managed to evade the Dutch justice system after the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa dismissed his appeal in September 2021 and nothing appeared to stand in the way of his extradition?
The official stance of the Dutch government, as articulated by the Minister of Justice, was that the Netherlands did not wish to interfere in the South African judicial process.
Regardless of whether or not ‘silent diplomacy’ took place behind the scenes to secure his extradition, the fact remains that the Netherlands failed to bring Kouwenhoven to the Netherlands to serve his 19-year prison sentence; he died a free man in South Africa nearly ten years after his final conviction for complicity in war crimes in Liberia and Guinea.
It is not only the Dutch government that has failed; the Dutch parliament – whose key responsibilities include scrutinizing the government alongside its legislative role – has also fallen short. Since September 2021, when reportedly no obstacles to Kouwenhoven’s extradition remained, not a single parliamentary question regarding the progress of the extradition has been put to the Minister of Justice (successively Grapperhaus, Yeşilgöz, Van Oosten, and Van Weel). Why?
The Netherlands takes pride in The Hague as an international capital of peace and justice. The city houses a large number of prestigious and important legal institutions: the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, and – formerly – the Yugoslavia Tribunal, the Lebanon Tribunal, while Kouwenhoven’s partner-in-crime, former Liberian President Charles Taylor, was tried and convicted in The Hague by the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Unfortunately, the reputation of the Netherlands – and The Hague as the capital of peace and justice – has now suffered a significant blow.
While it is plausible that Kouwenhoven managed to evade the Dutch justice system thanks to his illegally acquired wealth, the question remains as to why the Netherlands failed to ensure that Kouwenhoven served his well-deserved sentence in a Dutch prison. I find it hard to imagine that the Dutch justice system had simply ‘forgotten’ Kouwenhoven.
