Text 10916, 172 rader
Skriven 2008-02-11 09:01:51 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
     Kommentar till en text av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
Ärende: Told ya so - Holloway ... again ...
===========================================
Hello Roy,

On Saturday February 09 2008 15:07, you wrote to me:

 MvdV>> So he confirmed that de Vries confessed the murder? Wow!

 RW> I guess the English language is still not something you excel in.

Irrelevant. The whole 2 hour 20 min show was in Dutch.

 MvdV>> Your are making it up.

 RW> Nope, just repeating what de Vries said.

The opinion of de Vries is just that: an opinion. Opinions are not facts.

 MvdV>> vdS' medical education is irrelevant, that is the point.

 RW> Since he isn't even a med student, he cannot know, nor is he licensed
 RW> to make the determination of whether she was dead or not. Thanks for
 RW> making my point easy.

You have no point. Qualified or not, she was dead, that was his statement. For
the prosecution to construe a murder case they will have to prove that his
statement was false and that she was alive. They will have to prove that
without any reasonable doubt.

Merely throwing doubt by interjecting that vdS is not medically qualified is
not good enough. "Beyond any reasonable doubt" are the keywords.

 RW>>> Any prosecutor can take what he says in the film and turn it
 RW>>> into a charge of negligent homicide. Homicide is murder, even in
 RW>>> the Netherlands.

 MvdV>> Roy stop making a fool of yourself by pretending to be an
 MvdV>> expert on Dutch law. You are totally wrong. Death by negligence
 MvdV>> is *not* murder in the Netherlands.

 RW> The only fool in the debate is yourself. You're now claiming that
 RW> homicide is not murder, when it is. It is less than 2nd degree murder,
 RW> but more than manslaughter.

"Homicide" and "2nd degree murder" are term in the US legal system. They do not
have direct equivalents in the Dutch legal system. Death by negligence is not
homicide under the Dutch legal system.

 MvdV>>>> whatever the charge is: the onus of proof is on the
 MvdV>>>> prosecution....

 RW>>> Of course. But a confession is all the proof they need.

 MvdV>> Wrong! How many times do I have to tell you that by Dutch law a
 MvdV>> confession alone is *not* enough for a conviction?

 RW> Wrong...

Wrong? You think you know the Dutch legal system better than I do? LOL!

 MvdV>>>> he did not say "dangerous". The translator at Fox nust have
 MvdV>>>> made that up.

 RW>>> Vries speaks fluent Dutch, does he not?

 MvdV>> What does de Vries have to do with it?

 RW> He interpreted the film and Sloot's words into English on the Fox
 RW> showing of the film...he also interpreted what the prosecution said
 RW> about Sloot being dangerous.

So what you heard is the interpretation of de Vries. I heard the original. The
lawyer did not say "dangerous".

 MvdV>>>> At the time he thought she was dead. Are you saying that does
 MvdV>>>> not count?

 RW>>> Right, it doesn't count.

 MvdV>> That's odd. Not so long ago we discussed the case of a young
 MvdV>> man who was on his way to meet a 50 year old police officer
 MvdV>> that he thought was a fourteen year old girl. He spend two
 MvdV>> years in jail because he *thought* it was 14 year old girl an
 MvdV>> dthought was what counted.

 RW> What he thought wasn't why he went to prison. It was what he did that
 RW> sent him there.

He went to meet a 50 year old policeman in the lobby of a hotel. Is that a
crime?

 MvdV>> But now thought does not count?

 RW> Thought (i.e. state of mind) does count. Mens Reas must be proved in
 RW> court by the prosecution. Sloots' actions will no doubt be shown by
 RW> the prosecution, showing that his state of mind (mens reas) was to
 RW> remove himself from suspicion.

Nice rhetoric that may impress a jury in a US court. In the Dutch legal system
there is no jury.

 RW>>> His duty would have been to take her to a medical facility.

 MvdV>> He didn't. The associated crime would be: "verlating van
 MvdV>> hulpbehoevenden".

 RW> Negligent homicide, voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

Not under Dutch law....

 RW>>> Thank you...btw, the reference to compensation will occur under
 RW>>> US law.

 MvdV>> Try collecting from a Dutch citizen residing in The
 MvdV>> Netherlands...

 RW> Who said anything about collecting it?

What is the point of suing for compensation if there is no way to collect?

 MvdV>> Wrong. They can put the cameras in. But they may not use them
 MvdV>> to secretly videotape people. That's the law here. Period.

 RW> That's not what de Vries says...he's not worried that.

The opinions of de Vries do not make facts.

 MvdV>> If they are charged, they will be charged in The Netherland as
 MvdV>> it was there that the interviews took place.

 RW> It seems that the Netherlands is more  interested in what Vandersloot
 RW> had to say about the film, than what de Vries did to obtain that
 RW> confession. Sloot was detained for questioning Wednesday or Thursday.

Wrong. van der Sloot voluntarily submitted for an interview as a witness on
Friday. The interview took two hours and took place in Rotterdam. He officially
stated that everything he said on the tape was made up. And than he went home.

That's it.

 MvdV>> You keep forgetting that it is Dutch law that applies....

 RW> Apparently nothing of consequence will come of it. Murder always has
 RW> priority over a misdemeanor.

I would not count on that. Patrick van der Eem (the man who drove the car) is a
known criminal. He was denied entry to the US when he accompanied de Vries last
week. He was detained at New York airport for a couple of houes and send back
to The Netherlands because of a 13 year old drug related conviction.

de Vries knwe about the conviction but thought it had expired. So much for the
legal expertise of  de Vries....

 RW>>> course your next claim will be that the state can confiscate
 RW>>> that property because it was used in an alleged crime.

 MvdV>> Now that you mention it.. I think they actually can...

 RW> And it's still mounted in the vehicle as of today. Guess that's not as
 RW> important as getting to the bottom of the murder.

There is no murder case.

All there is are the later retracted ramblings of a stoned youngster who
everyone agrees is a pathological liar.

Without supporting evidence there is no case.

And that is why Joran van der Sloot has not been arrested. Yet.

Cheers, Michiel

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