DUTCH DEMAND INFORMATION ON DRUGS CONVICTS

QC hired to monitor appeals by Netherlands four jailed after Scots
customs man died By Dani Garavelli Chief Reporter

The Dutch government has hired a leading QC to brief them on the fate
of four of their countrymen who are appealling against their Scottish
conviction for drugs smuggling.

Concern has been raised in Holland about the conduct of the legal case
into Operation Balvenie, one of Scotland's largest ever drugs stings,
in which customs officer Alastair Soutar was killed.

The move comes after a number of documentaries highlighting the case
on Dutch television and questions were raised in the Dutch parliament.

It also follows mounting concern about the conduct of customs officers
in Britain after the quashing of convictions from a major trial
earlier this month and the announcement last week of an independent
inquiry into the customs officers involved.

Jan, Hendrick and Ronny van Rijs and Lieuwe Hoekstra were jailed for a
total of 48 years in March 1997. Now in Shotts Prison, they lodged an
appeal in Edinburgh earlier this month.

However, in an unprecedented move, the Dutch government has hired
William Taylor, a senior Scottish advocate who is representing one of
the Lockerbie accused and is a member of the Scottish Criminal Cases
Review Commission, to monitor the appeals process.

London-based Dutch journalist Hans Niemantsverdriet, who was
behind one of the radio documentaries, told Scotland on
Sunday: "The public interest in the case has been such that
the government obviously feels it needs to be fully briefed."

The four Dutchmen were convicted of taking part in a conspiracy to
smuggle 117 bags of Moroccan cannabis with a street value of more than
UKP10m from Spain to Scotland.

They were supposed to have transferred three tonnes of the drug from
their yacht, the Isolda, to the converted lifeboat Ocean Jubilee at a
rendevous off Caithness in July 1996.

After the transfer, customs officers boarded the Ocean Jubilee.
Soutar, 47, died when he was crushed between the vessel and a customs'
cutter.

The 'Mr Bigs' in the plot - Roddy MacLean, his lieutenant Gary Hunter
and a third man Brian Silverman - were jailed during the same trial
but their sentences of 28 and 24 years were later reduced to 21 and 17
years when the Court of Appeal ruled the trial judge Lord Dawson had
"disturbingly" taken the view that they were to blame for Soutar's
death, although they were not charged with culpable homicide.

And Silverman won a retrial when the Court of Appeal ruled Dawson had
misdirected the jury. Silverman was re-convicted, but given a lesser
sentence.

The four Dutchmen are appealing on several grounds.

In particular, they claim the examination of theit yacht, the Isolda,
by the jury took place in their absence, and thus they were unable to
establish if jute-backed carpeting and yellow marine paint present at
the time of their arrrest were still in place. They say these - and
not hessian-wrapped bales of cannabis - were responsible for fibres
on their clothing.

The grounds for appeal also allege "concealment and disposal" of
evidence on the part of the Crown, including a tracking device, said
to have been placed on board the Isolda illegally. The Dutchmen
believe this would show the Isolda and the Jubilee were in close
proximity for a shorter time than was suggested.

The Dutchmen also claim that at the time the yacht was supposed to
have been carrying cannabis off the coast of Morocco, it was subject
to mechanical difficulties and was boarded by the Moroccan navy, who
had found no drugs in board. This evidence was not produced at the
trial.

Earlier this month, the convictions of two of the country's most
notorious drugs barons were overturned after a judge heard evidence
that customs officers had lied to the courts and manipulated evidence.

Scots Brian Doran and Kenneth Togher were originally jailed for 25
years each for their part in a UKP65m drugs cartel but their
convictions were overturned at Bristol Crown Court by Mr Justice
Turner who said the officers involved were as "socially corrosive" as
the crimes they were investigating.