Arrested lawyer from Taghi understands the street. That attracts a certain clientele

In this environment, Shukrula sees how crime is sometimes transferred from generation to generation. « Madklapper, » he heard the father of a boyfriend say, « you’re not going to work for the government, are you crazy or something. Just deal with drugs. » But friends from that neighborhood respect him at the time, says Shukrula. « If they had a criminal plan, they always said, let Vito out of it, he does VWO. »

After high school, Shukrula immediately leaves for Amsterdam to study rights there. If he attends a large liquidation case, it makes a big impression on him. « This was really about something: lifelong or freedom. And those verbal fights in the courtroom. I want this too, I knew immediately. »

Three -piece suit

As a lawyer, he then fights for prejudices about boys who behave like his childhood friends. « That started at home when my sister sentenced a friend of mine for his behavior, » he says in Het Parool. « What did you expect from him? His father hit his mother and he put him out of the house. My sister was in a group of friends with blonde girls who are now working on the Zuidas, my life looked different. »

He is also struggling with discrimination, even if he successfully runs his own criminal law practice. « According to the police, the combination of expensive car, young driver is suspected. » Court boddes often ask him when his lawyer comes. « There you are in your three -part suit. I know what it feels like when the outside world sees you as a different and that gives me strength to go for my clients. »

I always say to my clients: that judge comes from Aerdenhout, he doesn’t know anything about your world

Vito Shukrula understands the street and knows the way in the judiciary. And that attracts a certain clientele. He calls himself « specialist in gangsterism. » His customers are all suspected of cracking, drug trafficking or worse and all want to become Scarface of the Godfather. But they never watch those films, says Shukrula. « They don’t think about the consequences: it’s me, Ikke, Ikke. »

Yet he continues to fight against prejudices with which he and his customers are confronted, also in court. « I always say to my clients: that judge comes from Aerdenhout, he knows nothing about your world. Take him: tell him what you have experienced, explain how it happened. »

In his early years as a lawyer, he notices that this is not always easy, he will tell de Volkskrant in the autumn of 2019. The shutters of his office were closed for a year and a half because he was threatened. A group of criminals wanted one of Shukrula’s clients to adjust an explanation, but Shukrula did not want to cooperate.

That threat has spent more than a year and is a first test of his idealism. Shukrula puts in de Volkskrant from how he stands standing despite that threat. He does everything at the addition, a fixed hourly rate by the State, and never hires large amounts of customers. « Then you become blackmail and you have to keep facilitating them. »

Murder of Derk Wiersum

In the fall of 2019, his worldview will get a slap after the murder of Derk Wiersum, Nabil B.’s lawyer who explained as a crown witness against Taghi. He tells in not long after the death of his colleague de Volkskrant How he is struggling with his profession: « You should almost have a weave to do this work. » His idealism is ruined by his clients: « You can’t keep using a kut youth as an excuse. »

Yet this introspection does not get the same attention as a different statement in that interview, about his Rolex: “Clients think such things are important. You get what you ask for.  » Many fellow lawyers encounter the breast.

Years later, Shukrula is still angry about the criticism of his statements. « Jalousie de MétierHe says about it in June of 2024 in the podcast Na. ‘Angry white males, super jealous that a boy who has been in the legal profession for five years in five pages in de Volkskrant gets. And how many people appeal to you immediately? Zero. »

There is something else that distinguishes Shukrula from some professionals: he wants to know everything about his clients, he says in de Volkskrant in 2019. « Did you commit that murder, where is the weapon, what was the motive. You can whisper if you don’t want to say it out loud. But I want to know. You have to know where the pain is. »

I know what it feels like when the outside world sees you as different

Vito Shukrula comes back a few years later, if Peter R. de Vries was murdered in the summer of 2021. In the first instance he says ‘no’ if he is asked to assist someone in that case, he says in 2024 in Het Parool. « It came too close. I admired Peter. »

In fact: Shukrula said the Vries said he was confident when the crime reporter became a confidant of Nabil B., crown witness in the Marengo criminal case against Ridouan Taghi. « These guests are not Holleeder, » he told De Vries. « They don’t go around the table with you, they shoot right away. »

In the days that followed, Shukrula received abdominal pain from the decision not to assist the suspect of De Vries’s murder. « I thought I was walking away. These are the lawsuits in the case of. » But, he acknowledges, this time he did not need to know if his client did it. « I want to keep seeing him as a person. »

Pressure from the underworld

Nine months after he told this against Het ParoolShukrula is being tested again. In the fall of 2024, approaching is asked if he wants to assist Ridouan Taghi. Taghi is never formally accused of involvement in the murder of De Vries. But the OM has familiarized there several times.

Even now, Shukrula doubts, say sources who have heard it from his own mouth. Should he do this? The issue also leads to discussion within his own family. His sister, who works as a public prosecutor, thinks he should let this job go.

Vito Shukrula understands the risks, according to a double interview with Ulysse Ellian NRC In the summer of 2024. He wonders why the VVD MP is so openly expressed about, for example, the circumstances under which Ridouan Taghi should be trapped. « We should not do too exciting about mentioning his name, otherwise we admit, » said Ellian.

Shukrula believes that « super principle » and at the same time « life -threatening. » You make yourself target and your family, « says Shukrula. » Don’t forget these types of criminals quickly.  »

In the conversation with Ellian he describes how difficult it is to resist the pressure of the underworld. They don’t ask anything, but give orders. They are used to that, says Shukrula. « And then you have to be strong and not do something that really is not possible. »

Nevertheless, Vito Shukrula decides to accept the request to defend Taghi. In November 2024 he presents himself at the court as the new lawyer of the country’s most feared criminal. Not long afterwards, Intelligence Service AIVD sends a message to the OM that Shukrula was unable to resist Taghi’s pressure and messages from Taghi the heavily secured prison.

That taghi denied having passed on information via Shukrula, makes little impression on the court for the time being. He extended the provisional detention of Vito Shukrula by sixty days last Friday. Has the man who rose against Willem Holleeder turned out to be a size too small for Ridouan Taghi?

That must be apparent. The court’s decision is a sign that there is a strong file that still requires a lot of research. Regardless of what that yields, the chance is that Vito Shukrula after Inez Weski and Advocaten cousin Youssef Taghi will be the third criminal lawyer whose reputation is dying during the Marengo criminal case.

Within the legal profession they now know: if you defend Taghi then ‘the AIVD crawls into your phone’

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