The Holleeder tapes for dummies

The front page of De Telegraaf almost exploded this morning and everyone seems to be talking about it: the Holleeder tapes. They will be broadcast in full tonight on RTL4, at 8:30 PM. You can't get more prime time than that. Without the pretension of presenting myself as a crime expert, I notice that there is a need to answer the four W's (that's something different than the three J's). Who, what, where, and why. In other words: the Holleeder tapes for dummies.

WHAT is going on?

Long, long ago, namely on April 29, 2011, Peter R. de Vries had a three-quarter-hour phone conversation with Willem Holleeder.

Okay, okay, okay, and WHAT is so exciting about that?

Well, first of all because Holleeder and Peter R. were not exactly friends and still aren't (that's the understatement of this decade) and also because it took place in the office of Stijn Franken, then Holleeder's lawyer, who misused the ‘lawyer's phone’ for this. Because of course, it's not the intention for a lawyer to pass the phone to the most important journalist in the country. And I haven't even mentioned the content of the conversation yet.

Yes, tell me, because WHAT was said there?

Well, first of all, you pronounce ‘what’ as ‘watte’, just like ‘hen’ is ‘hun’. The main thing is that Holleeder suspected that he might die ‘an unnatural death’ and he didn't want others to suddenly be left out of the picture with his death because they could shift all their practices onto him. The truth had to come to light someday, and of all people, he trusted and respected Peter R. de Vries the most. He also promised that he would not do anything with the information unless Holleeder died ‘in an unnatural way’.

Phew. But Holleeder is still alive and yet Peter R. shares this information. WHY?

He says he thought about that for a long time, because normally Peter R. is of the man-a-man-word-a-word principle, but at a certain point he thought: who am I actually protecting? Holleeder is said to have murdered his best friend Cor van Hout, there would be a sum of money on Peter R.'s head, and Peter R. is a confidant of Sonja and Astrid Holleeder, the sisters of Willem who are testifying against their brother.

ARE YOU STILL THERE?

So. That's how it is.

And, is everyone happy with this released information?

Well... Stijn Franken certainly isn't, because he has the dean of the bar association on his neck accusing him of having misused that lawyer's phone. And for lawyer Bénédicte Ficq, Tuesday, February 12, will certainly not go down in history as the best day of her life. She is accused of having urged Holleeder to commit perjury so that her client, Dino Soerel, would receive a reduction in sentence. She is said to have even pressured Holleeder. Now Bénédicte is one of the guys, so she is not intimidated by this. She rolls up her upper lip, posts the complete transcript of the conversation between Holleeder and Peter R. online on her site, and says in a response that she finds the broadcasting of the Holleeder tapes improper journalism, and I can't completely disagree with her on that. There is certainly no question of hearing both sides here. And now you think: she will surely tell her side of the story in one of the following talk shows, but no, that can't happen, because Ficq has also been given a gag order by the dean.

Improper journalism or not, at half past eight tonight, I'll be sitting in front of the TV. And then I hope that the other main characters will get their open stage later this week because we are not going to let ourselves be completely used by Holleeder, right? And what do Sonja and Astrid actually think about this? In short, this screams for a follow-up.