Today, the Court heard the Diamante criminal case against the suspect A.A.H. on appeal. In 2023, H. was sentenced by the Court of First Instance to 24 months in prison, 6 months of which were suspended, with a 3-year probation period. This morning, the public prosecution service requested the Court to adopt the lower court’s judgment and uphold the verdict. In addition to the prison sentence, the Court of First Instance had also fined the suspect 35,000 guilders at the time and ordered the forfeiture of a seized amount of 15,000 guilders.
H. is accused of embezzling nearly 200,000 guilders between December 2018 and March 2021, and of using forged documents between October 2019 and April 2021. The fact that H.—a former police officer—was both a member of parliament (Statenlid) and the chairman of a foundation affiliated with his political party during that period is held heavily against him.
The Diamante case began following a red flag showing that public money, paid by parliament to the foundation in question, largely ended up in H.’s personal bank account. The public prosecution service believes that H. has severely damaged the trust that citizens should be able to place in members of parliament. This type of misconduct can have a profound impact on public trust in public officials and institutions, harming the credibility and integrity of the rule of law.
The Court has closed the investigation and will render its verdict on July 8, 2026.