Malika Karoum not fired

Malika's lawyer Han Jahae informed TV program RTL Boulevard today that his client is currently suspended from her job but that she is not fired.

In itself this is not an uncommon occurrence that a company suspends an employee that is the focus of unwanted attention, guilty or not. When push comes to shove, companies are about the bottom line and profit and they cannot afford to draw unwanted attention, especially in the real estate sector when the accusation is money laundering.

Therefore private-dick Jaques Smits allegations that Malika is fired after the intelligence service in Dubai 'presented convincing evidence' to her employer is again utter bogus.

The intelligence service doing that would be kinda odd. If there is convincing proof that Malika is guilty of anything, she would have been arrested, by the police. The intelligence service or the police would not have gone to her employer with such evidence.

In that same TV program, crime reporter John van de Heuvel confirmed again that in the Netherlands there is no criminal investigation against Malika Karoum.

Arrest warrant out for ex-husband of Malika Karoum

There is a warrant out for the arrest of Mohammed Boulnouar. Several customers of his travelagency have filed charges of fraud against him when they found out that the money they had saved up and paid to Boulnouar for the hadj to Mekka had vanished and that they would not travel.

Boulnouar claims that he was the victim of a robbery on Friday 31 Okt when he wanted to deliver about 300.000 Euro's in cash and several hundred passports to Royal Jordanian Airways. Supposedly, the robbers, who were not seen by any one but Boulnouar had told him they were sent by 'Malika'.

Malika Karoum is Boulnouars ex-wife who is engaged in a fierce custody battle with Mohammed Boulnouar that has led Boulnouar and self proclaimed kid-hunter Jacques Smit to spread serious but unsubstantiated rumours about her.

Boulnouars customers do not believe that he was robbed. Oddly enough some of them were told by another employee of the travelagency that if they paid another 1500 euro's they would be able to travel. Odd of course if the pasports are also stolen.

Boulnouar is in hiding since last monday November 3. His partner in the travelagency however says that he is not in hiding but too shocked to talk to anyone.

The money was not insured. The insurance was only valid during transport with a backup car following the transport but it has never come to that.

Malika Karoum possibly extradited? Doubt it!

According to dutch weekly Nieuwe Revu, Malika Karoum might be extradited by Dubai. Again the by now completely milked out allegations of money-laundering and  organized crime iare mentioned though currently it seem that these allegations solely come from the phantasy of self-proclaimed kid-hunter Jacques Smits and Mohammed Boulnouar, Malika's ex-husband .

Until now, there is no proof that the sole interest of the justice department in Malika is ianything else than in connection with a child custody case between her and her estranged husband.

This ex-husband supposedly was threathened again by an unknown assailant with a gun and silencer. Boulnouar -again supposedly- just barely managed to escape into snackbar Samar on the Amsterdam Bos-en Lommerweg. Indeed, at this snackbar he was seen coming in screamingly but no one say the assaillant. The police is looking for witnesses. Most likely there was no shooting and if I may add, most likely there was no assaillant.

Malika's ex has filed criminal complaints against Malika several times before. These included intimidation, arsony and battery, though his attackers only once -supposedly- indicated 'they had a message from Malika'.

In May the court awarded custody to Boulnouar, but Malika is firecely resisting. Her lawyer has requested revision of the May 2008 verdict. That case will serve December 1.

Boulnouar's lawyer, Emma Swart, wants to raise hell at the DA's office to ensure that Malika attends in person, she tells Nieuwe Revu. "It cannot be that the child that is formally awarded to her father, remains in Dubai".

That of course is a nonsense statement of Ms Swart. Malika can choose to appear in person and that has nothing to do with the whereabouts of her child and on top of that Malika has the right to be represented -at proxy- by legal council.

The arrest of Ryan Pieters- Rounding up the usual suspects

The arrest of Ryan Pieters, a suspect in the recent abduction of Bonaire based dutch pharmacy assistent Marlies van der Kouwe who was abducted on Bonaire in the Dutch Antilles saturday night 20 Sept is based on one fact and one fact alone: his rapsheet

Ryan Pieters has a prior arrest and conviction for rape and abduction of a Chech tourist in 2002 and he was recently released from Curaçao's Bon Futura prison and had returned to Bonaire. In reality that is not the only reason why he emerged on the radarscreen of Bonaire's finest. Another compelling reason was simply that they could not think of anybody else.

So imagine the state at Bonaires Police headquarters where police chief Jan Schagen only heard in the course of Monday 22nd of September that a girl had been abducted the fridaynight before and his constables only action was to pick up her lost slipper and shrug their shoulders.

When they could not find any leads and in a desperate move to avoid the Natalee Holloway disaster that plagued Bonaire's sister island a few years before they turned to the only thing the police is good at: Rounding up the usual suspects. Since Bonaire is aonly a small island, they only had one, which ofcourse makes it easier for the police. They do not have to decide by tossing a coin 'who dunnit' as they only have one suspect.

So after it was decided who must be the culprit, now Bonaire's finest is doing everything they can to prove that Ryan Pieters did it and refuse to be distracted by the facts.
Helped by the media tidbits of info are released that have a single goal: to convince everybody that Ryan did it. This strategy is not unknown in the Netherlands as is proven by many judicial errors in which people were convicted to long jailsentences while a child could see there was no evidence.
Obviuously this strategy is now also being adopted by Bonaire, by Dutch police chief Schagen.

So what is the incriminating evidence:

• A scooter 'similar to the one used in the abduction' was found mud covered and 'hidden' in a shed at Ryan's uncle's house. The mud was of a type that was identical to the mud at the scene of the crime. That is pure bogus. All scooters look basically alike and it is a popular mode of transport in Bonaire. Marlies was abducted on a public thruway, where Ryan or anybody else could have passed on that scooter any given day. Besides on small island like aruba chances are all the mud is basically the same.The scooter was not 'hidden', it was just parked in a shed. Nevertheless finding the scooter was reason for the arrest of Pieters. They might as well have arrested anybody occupying a house where a scooter was parked.
• Then last week suddenly a 'breakthrough' was claimed. There was a 'partial confession' whatever that may mean. Apparently according to the newspapers and many blogs on the subject. Ryan had admitted to have had contact with Marlies the night before and supposedly insinuated that 'something had happened' between the two. For one thing: Kralendijk, the main town on Bonaire is so small it would fit in Yankee stadium with room to spare and everybody runs into eachother when they go out in the towns only watering hole. More importantly however is the fact that yesterday it became clear that Pieters has not said this at all. He only has tolld investigators that he had seen Marlies around and about on the town. Well, as said, it is a small town.

Because the police already made up their mind who the culprit is, any evidence possibly leading to another conclusion or even another perpetrator must be strictly ignored. So ignored is the fact that it might be case of mistaken identity. Last week Wouter van Kouwen (a supposed criminal who turned state evidence) the father of Jaymelee van Kouwen - note the similarity in names with Marlies- a girl who is roughly the same age and has the same looks as Marlies and who works in a shop next to the bar where Marlies partied before her abduction, reported that he received a phonecall demanding a ransome for the release of his daugther Jayme. Even more: Van Kouwen's other daugther -8 year old Bo- fell victim to a failed abduction in Bonaire, on Wednesday 24 sept, only a few days after the abduction of Marlies.

The police however declare the two abductions to be unrelated and just 'coincidental'. Also, they have stated that the ransome phonecall 'did not happen'. Unfortunately they stated this without even investigating and did not even contact Wouter van Kouwen to ask about it. Until today he still is waiting for the police to ask him about it.

Another unfortunate mishap for the police that they are ignoring in order not to be confused by the facts is that Ryan has an alibi for that evening and a large part of the night: his girlfriend. Even though she cannot testify to his whereabouts 'every minute' of that evening and night, it hardly seems likely that Ryan left his girlfriend to go abduct and rape someone and had time enough to dispose of the body in a way that the police has been unable to find her: Bonaire is only 288 sq km.

None of us knows if Ryan indeed abducted and possibly raped and killed Marlies, but it seems that his arrest and the subsequent investigation is done out of a desire to produce results. Who cares if he did it, as long as he can be convicted. Anything to avoid receiving Natalee Holloway like criticism and see tourist numbers to the island dwindle.

British Diver held in Honduras after Dutch student dies

British diving instructor Daniel Ross (30), is being held in Honduras after one of his students, Dutch tourist Mariska Mast (23),  collapsed in his bathroom and later died.

Dan Ross spent several days in a notoriously grim jail in Coxen Hole on the Honduran island of Roatan before being transferred to a police station following the intervention of British diplomats.

Mr Ross, who holds dual British and Australian nationality, has yet to be charged with any crime but, as a foreigner, the Hondurans consider him a flight risk.

He told police that Mariska Mast collapsed suddenly on his bathroom floor at around 3am last Friday after they had gone out drinking.
After monitoring her condition for two hours with a Korean woman with whom he shared the flat, Mr Ross noticed her breathing had stopped and immediately performed cardiopulmonary resusciation (CPR).

According to British officials, Mr Ross took her to hospital but, unable to converse with Spanish-speaking doctors who signaled that he had to leave, he returned to his home in the island's West End district.

Finding his housekeeper cleaning up after the incident, he helped her - unaware that Miss Mast had died and that they were removing vital evidence.
Mat Harper, the British Honorary Consul on Roatan, said he was visiting Mr Ross every day with food and reading materials.

He said: “He's in pretty good shape. He's being detained as a matter of course as, under Honduran law, he was associated with the woman who died.”
He added: “He's being held for questioning because the Hondurans want to ascertain exactly what happened that night.”
An autopsy at the weekend was inconclusive but Mr Ross's fate will become clear at a second hearing when the Hondurans must decide whether to charge or release him.

Mr Ross, who was born in Australia but is understood to have a British mother, had been on Roatan since March. He taught at the British-owned Coconut Tree Divers diving school, where he had completed both his diving and instructor training .
Staff at the school said they were "horrified" by his situation and described Mr Ross as a “great guy”.

A fellow teacher said: “It's really harsh. In the diving industry, we're taught to administer CPR and first aid. Dan went into the mode that all of us go into when that happens.”