WILLEMSTAD - On day five of the appeal in the Maximus case, attorney Stijn Franken launched a 200-page plea last Tuesday on behalf of former Finance Minister George Jamaloodin. The hearing of the plea took two days.
In his plea last Tuesday, Franken mainly wanted to demonstrate that the statements of the witnesses in the Maximus case are all incomplete and unreliable. Therefore, they would not be suitable for inclusion in the ruling of the judges. To substantiate this, Franken reflects on the various witnesses with their statements.
Five Speedy Security employees
Five Speedy Security employees made statements between 2015 and 2017. Two of these employees say that Jamaloodin always required them to withdraw money from the bank. Later they saw that Burney "Nini" Fonseca (who has been convicted as the so-called murder broker) took the same envelopes they had received from the bank when he visited Jamaloodin.
So they assume that the money they withdrawn was given to Fonseca. When asked about the times, each employee mentioned a different time when they would have seen Fonseca. In addition, these times do not correspond to the times that they used the time clock.
Franken further explains that one of Speedy Security's bank statements shows that only once a large amount of 23,000 guilders has been included with the description 'salaries'. The lawyer says he finds it remarkable that the judge of first instance has used these statements as evidence that Jamaloodin caused the death of Helmin Wiels in 2013.
Employees have also said that Elvis Kuwas (the gunman of the murder of Helmin Wiels) has been in the office of Jamaloodin. Kuwas in turn has denied this.
J. Boutisma
According to Franken, the statements of J. Boutisma, the brother of Luigi 'Pretu' Florentina, against Jamaloodin should also be questioned. Boutisma refused to make a statement shortly after the murder. But after Burney 'Nini' Fonseca was once sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2017 (on appeal that became 26 years later), he was willing to talk.
Franken does not like that Bautisma and his mother were suspected of money laundering through a piece of land owned by Pretu. After Boutisma was interrogated in the Wiels murder case, it never came to a trial.
According to the lawyer, everything indicates that an agreement has been reached with Boutisma in exchange for his statement. As a result, he and his mother were not prosecuted. They were also allowed to keep the property and also another 15 thousand guilders.
Franken also has doubts about the content of the statement. According to Franken, there are recorded conversations between Boutisma and Pretu, in which Pretu tells Boutisma that he has nothing to do with the death of Helmin Wiels.
Givenchy Maria
Furthermore, the counsel objects to the testimony of Givenchy Maria. Maria was involved in the 'Hato (airport) Shooting' in 2014 in which two people were killed. He then faced a twenty-year sentence, but because he cooperated in the investigation, he had a substantial reduced sentence.
Prosecutor Ger Rip was the one who dealt with this case and he is also the one who agreed with Maria that he would receive less punishment if he cooperated in the investigation.
Three weeks after the conviction of Maria, it is the same Rip who approached Maria to get a statement about the murder of Wiels. According to lawyer Franken, that is not possible. The officer cannot use the accused of one case he has heard as a witness in another case.
In 2015, Maria stated that he heard from D'Angelo "Pancheck" Damascus that Gerrit Schotte and Robbie Dos Santos had ordered the murder of Wiels. Damascus has also been a suspect in the murder of Wiels and the murder of Bolle (nickname). But Damscus was acquitted.
However, two years later in 2017, Maria stated that Luigi Florentina told him about Wiels' murder and that Jamaloodin would have paid for the murder. Two completely different statements, which means that Maria is not a reliable witness, according to Franken.
What surprises lawyer Franken is how the public prosecutor used both statements in two different trials. On the one hand, the statement given by Maria in 2015 is included in the trial against Robby Dos Santos and, on the other hand, the statement of 2017 in the trial against Jamaloodin.
Another reason why Franken is of the opinion that Maria's statements should be disregarded is that Maria is treated as a suspect in one case and as a witness in the other by the same prosecutor Rip.
Jamaloodin's defense team consists of Stijn Franken, Eldon 'Peppie' Sulvaran, Athena Sulvaran, Mirto Murray and Rutsel Martha.