Van Lienden must stand trial for fraud with a face mask deal

• Ruben Eg

  economics editor

Sywert van Lienden must stand trial with his business partners Bernd Damme and Camille van Gestel for defrauding the State. The objection that the three entrepreneurs had submitted to this charge in the case of their controversial face mask deal was rejected by the judge this afternoon.

According to their lawyers, “the Ministry of Health knew all about it.” They did not purchase the face masks through the charitable foundation of Van Lienden and his business partners, but through a separate commercial company. Because according to them the Ministry of Health knew this, they felt that there could be no question of fraud.

The judge referred to the criminal file of more than 13,000 pages built up by the Public Prosecution Service. According to him, this shows that the public prosecutor did not proceed with prosecution lightly.

According to the judge, the plea from the lawyers of the three entrepreneurs was also contested with arguments by the Public Prosecution Service. “These readings are at odds with each other. This debate in court also shows that the argument cannot be settled in advance.”

The objection to the charge of fraud was therefore declared unfounded. If Van Lienden and his business partners had had the charges dismissed, a large part of the criminal case against them would have disappeared.

According to the lawyers of the three, the State only reported itself as a victim to the Public Prosecution Service after articles about the face mask deal appeared in the media and outrage arose in the House of Representatives. “A people’s crusade has started with a search for a head of Jut. They are now being hoisted onto the cart to exhibit to the people.”

It was also emphasized that the ministry had not filed a report. “There is only one reason for this: the State has not been defrauded at all. Another reason for not filing a report is because otherwise the State would file a false report.”

The Public Prosecution Service stated that the Ministry of Health was not keen to enter into a relationship with the charitable foundation because it did not want a second channel to distribute resources. The ministry changed tack because the foundation became increasingly famous, while Van Lienden shared all the successes on Twitter and criticized the “failing government”: “That opened a political door”.

According to the Public Prosecution Service, the officials assumed that the company Relief Good Alliance (RGA) of the three entrepreneurs was owned by their Stichting Hulpstromen Alliance (SHA). “One official stated that he had not known what the difference was: ‘I thought it was the English translation. And that it was not for profit’.”

According to the Public Prosecution Service, the names of the foundation and the BV were always mixed up to sow confusion. “RGA was an empty shell. It had no website, no office, no email address, no staff, no testing room. They could only close the deal because of the foundation’s name recognition. A dual role was abused.” It was pointed out that the first profit distributions were transferred to the entrepreneurs’ personal BVs a few days after the first payment of the order.

If the charge of defrauding the State had been dropped, the reports from Randstad and volunteers would still have remained. The temporary employment group made fifteen employees available free of charge to the Van Lienden foundation and its partners. Afterwards, Randstad discovered that millions had been earned partly thanks to the work of the staff loaned out “for free”. A volunteer also filed a report.