PowNed acquitted in case of covert recordings of Mayor Onno Hoes

The Amsterdam District Court tells Omroep Powned free of the secret recording of conversations and the distribution thereof. This seems to have come to an end for eleven years of lawsuits around in 2014 image and sound recordings of Onno Hoes, then mayor of Maastricht.

The then twenty-year-old Robbie Hasselt had the recordings made during dates that the VVD director had with him. Hoes had contacted Hasselt itself via Twitter and Facebook. Hasselt wanted to denounce that the mayor acted contrary to commitments that he had previously made to the Maastricht city council about his behavior in private time. The court finds it crucial that the recordings were made on the initiative and therefore with the knowledge of Hasselt.

Hoes then reported against Hasselt and Omroep Powned. The Public Prosecution Service dismissed the case in 2015, but Hoes still forced prosecutor in 2017 through the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. Hasselt was already acquitted in January of this year.

Gravel

Hoes, mayor of Maastricht since 2010 and then married to television presenter Albert Verlinde, was discredited at the end of 2013 after he kissed a 24-year-old man in a hotell lobby in the Limburg capital. Shortly thereafter, the mayor’s profile on the gay dating app Grindr (including a photo with bare torso) became public.

Political Maastricht was critical, partly for fear of a blackmail mayor, but did not come up with a motion of no confidence.

Hoes apologized to the city council. He called him to « fully fulfill his office. » Some of the parties made it clear that it was once but never again.

Thanks to the broadcast of Powned, Hoes’ behavior came back to the table. Also because he shared his work agenda with Hasselt and spoke to him with Dedain about the city council. Political Maastricht was critical, partly for fear of a blackmail mayor, but did not come up with a motion of no confidence. However, the mayor himself concluded that he had suffered too much damage and resigned.

In 2019, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal already ruled in civil proceedings. That then thought that freedom of expression weighed heavier than the right to privacy of Hoes, because Powned « social relevant facts » raised.

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