Dutch war criminal beyond law's reach in SA

A war criminal has found a safe haven in SA, the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court ruled on Friday. Magistrate Ingrid Arntsen said it was with ‘great regret’ she had decided that Dutch arms dealer Augustinus Kouwenhoven could not be extradited to the Netherlands, where he has been sentenced to 19 years behind bars, notes a TimesLIVE report. Kouwenhoven smuggled weapons for Liberian strongman Charles Taylor’s regime during Sierra Leone’s bloody civil war. Arntsen said the Extradition Act made it clear that people could be extradited only in relation to offences alleged to have been committed with the territorial jurisdiction of the state requesting extradition. She agreed with Kouwenhoven’s counsel, Anton Katz, that because the 76-year-old’s crimes had been committed in Liberia, he could not be extradited to the Netherlands. ‘There is nothing to link the offences of which he has been convicted with the geographical territory of the Netherlands,’ she said in her 10-page judgment. The decision means Kouwenhoven can continue living in the multimillion-rand home he owns on Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard, notes the report. During the extradition hearing, prosecutor Christopher Burke said the arms dealer was convicted and sentenced by the Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal to 19 years’ imprisonment.