Ridouan Taghi's lawyers have resigned from the defense. They tell the Algemeen Dagblad and the ANP that 'continuing is of no use'. In June, Michael Ruperti, Arthur van der Biezen and Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen took over the case from lawyer Inez Weski, who was suspected of membership of Taghi's criminal organization.

Unwilling
The lawyers argue that Taghi is not granted an adequate defense by the court because the court is always unwilling when they make requests.

Their first request was to postpone the case for nine months, after all, they had to read up. In the meantime, the case against Taghi was almost complete, after a demand for a life sentence, Weski had already given her last response to the Public Prosecution Service in the rejoinder.

The court rejected the request for that postponement, but the ruling scheduled for October was moved to February. The lawyers felt that this was insufficient and a violation of the right to a fair trial.

The court also did not want to split Taghi's case from that of the other suspects in the Marengo trial.

Sil A.
After ex-commander Sil A. stated in his case that he had attended a meeting a few years ago where a public prosecutor allegedly asked about the possibilities of liquidating Taghi, the lawyers wanted to hear witnesses about this.

The court saw 'no indications' that there was a plan to kidnap or kill Taghi. Requests for witnesses about this were rejected. This also applied to new data that, according to the lawyers, could indicate that Taghi had been mistreated by Dutch officials during his transport from Dubai to the Netherlands.

A request for recusal from Taghi's lawyers was rejected in early November .

According to lawyer Ruperti, Taghi has stated that he no longer wants another lawyer in this final phase of the court process.