AMSTERDAM - Willem Holleeder has known in a hitherto secret 'confession' that he has formed a triumvirate with the dead-top criminal Stanley Hillis and the life-condemned Dino Soerel.

This is evidenced by a very revealing tape from a recorded telephone conversation of one hour between crime reporter Peter R. de Vries and Willem Holleeder in April 2011.

Holleeder then finished the final phase of his sentence for extorting Willem Endstra. He feared to be liquidated by Dino Soerel because he refused to make a statement relieved of Soerel.

The telephone conversation from 2011, which was listened to last weekend by this newspaper, provides the public prosecutor with new evidence for the suspicion that Holleeder, together with Hillis and Soerel, led a criminal gang that had murders carried out.

The tape was handed to the PPS last week by Peter R. de Vries, who sends copies to the court and the defenders today. The leaking of the confession comes at a very unfavorable moment for Holleeder. Holleeder denied to know anything about the six liquidations that are being charged during the trial against him. The opposite is evident from the tape.

The tape in 2011 was recorded at the request of Holleeder and could only be made public if he said he would die an 'unnatural death'. De Vries said this, but handed over the tape to the Public Prosecution Service last week.

"Around Christmas I decided to listen to the tape again", De Vries told the newspaper. "I had not heard the tape for years and had actually forgotten what Holleeder had said. But when I heard it again I realized how stressful this actually is. His story from then confirms exactly what his sisters have declared in recent years. "

According to De Vries, he now breaks his word given to Holleeder in 2011. "I then promised that I would not make the tape public until something would have happened to Holleeder . " But the man has now threatened me with death and tried to kill me from prison. Then, as far as I am concerned, this agreement will lapse. "

The tape can have major consequences for Holleeder and the process because the confession in the eyes of the Public Prosecution Service underpins the suspicions and can be a blow to Holleeder's defense.

Incidentally, the confession is rather painful for Holleeder's previous lawyer, Mr. Stijn Franken. The tape appears to have been recorded at the Franken office. The tape shows how Holleeder calls the law firm and how Stijn Franken then hands over the phone to De Vries, knowing that this is forbidden. Lawyer telephones may only be used for communication between counselors and their clients.