"I assure you that in the next ten years no life sentence will be released. It is a big play." Frenkie P. spent nearly three quarters of an hour in the courtroom in The Hague listening to what was being said about him as he himself spoke.

He looks fit, talks busy and has difficulty hiding his anger and frustrations. The conversations he had in the Pieter Baan Center with a psychiatrist, who had to help assess whether Frenkie P. would be ready to prepare for a return to society, the former leader of the Venlo Gang calls "a big charade. "The guy didn't like me. I told him 'if I don't want to talk to you, I won't.' I also have something to say. After ten weeks I said, 'I don't need this for me.'" Then he continued. "What's the point of thinking about your future or saying who you might hang out with later, if you're in for life. If, if, if ... I have the basement full of that. Who's to say I'll ever get out?"

'Backroom politics'
That he has little faith in the Dutch legal system became crystal clear at the beginning of the summary proceedings that Frenkie P. brought against the State. Frenkie P. feels that he has lost his chance of ever becoming a free man because of backroom politics. "Things are happening that apparently I am not allowed to know," he is reported to have confided to his lawyer Sjanneke de Crom. Why is he not allowed to know what had been discussed about him by experts? Why is he not told what the victims and relatives think of his release? Why was he not given access to the draft advice that the Advisory Board on Life Imprisonment issued to Minister Sander Dekker of Justice? That was negative. So Frenkie P. has questions.

Lawyer Cecile Bitter, who represents the minister, believes the now 47-year-old Venlo man could have given better answers and should have cooperated better. "It is not up to Mr. P. to determine how the investigation goes," she said. It was Frenkie himself who did not want to specify how he saw his future. Nor did he have anything in it to think about who he wanted to hang out with if he were to end up back on the street. "Also such an if question, what should I do with that?" And talking about the manslaughter and the six murders for which he received a life sentence in 1996, he did not at all. He insists he didn't commit the six murders. So what should he talk about them?

In public
Frenkie P., the life-sentenced leader of the Venlo Gang, appeared in public again Tuesday morning for the first time since April 26, 1996. He had been brought from his cell in the prison in Arnhem to the court in The Hague. There his summary proceedings against the State began at 10:30 a.m. Frenkie P. - supported by his lawyers Sjanneke de Crom and Cliff Raafs - is making an ultimate attempt to be released one day. The already slim chance of that happening has shrunk even more now that a special advisory panel has informed Minister Sander Dekker of Legal Protection that P. is not yet ready to prepare for a return to society, let alone that there could be talk of release. The Minister of Legal Protection has so ruled in 2019. So he is officially the other party today.

Frenkie P. did not travel to The Hague with his lawyers to plead for his short-term release. He only wants to enforce the prospect that he might one day walk out of the prison gate with his personal belongings as a free man. In legal words, he wants a real prospect of reassessment of the life imprisonment imposed on him for committing one homicide and six murders. Six of those life crimes he never confessed to.

Recidivism risk
He failed the first test of the Advisory Committee on Life Imprisonment. Is there a chance that Frenkie P. will kill again or commit other crimes? Has the former gang leader changed in his favor after 26 years? What will be the impact on the many victims and relatives in Venlo and the surrounding area upon release? The Advisory Committee on Life Imprisonment has put Frenkie P. along the yardstick and ruled that even a first step toward pardon cannot be an issue. Officially, it is called that Frenkie P. has "not given the college the confidence that things will go well, given his personality and the risk of recidivism.

By the way, according to attorney Bitter, that does not mean that Frenkie P. will not get a reevaluation. "That will certainly happen in time," he said. The judge in The Hague will let us know in two weeks whether Frenkie P. should be given earlier perspective.https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20200818_00172094/boze-frenkie-p-de-komende-tien-jaar-komt-geen-levenslanggestrafte-vrij?utm_campaign=seeding&utm_content=article&utm_medium=social&utm_sour

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