Because it has not been possible to extradite convicted drug criminal Jos Leijdekkers from Sierra Leone, the government will try to stop European Union development money to the country. The Netherlands hopes to increase the pressure on Sierra Leone with the help of other European countries.

“It is of course bizarre that we facilitate or support a country that at the same time offers a safe haven to one of the largest drug criminals we know worldwide,” Minister Van Weel of Justice said in the TV program .

The EU has 352 million euros in subsidies for the period from 2021 to 2027 to Sierra Leone promised(opens in new window)states the European Commission website. The West African country also benefits from regional and international EU programmes.

Van Weel calls the arrest of Jos Leijdekkers, also known as Bolle Jos, one of his biggest priorities. “We estimate that this man has an income of hundreds of millions of euros per month in a country with a gross national product that is lower than his income. That will of course completely corrupt such a country.”

That is why the cabinet wants to remove him from there, the minister says. He also emphasizes that it is time for Leijdekkers to serve the eighty years in prison that he received in the Netherlands and Belgium.

At the beginning of May, Van Weel tried to put pressure on the extradition process in a diplomatic way by talking to his counterpart from Sierra Leone. He received the answer he has been hearing for six months, says Van Weel: “Busy at work, procedures are underway, police report almost completed.”

The minister has “no illusion” that anything will move through politics. “So we are also looking more broadly.” So via European development funds.

In Van Weel cited the large drug seizure in the Canary Islands at the beginning of May, a record seizure of between 30,000 and 45,000 kilos of drugs.

An unprecedentedly large transport, the minister said, which everyone knows is in Freetown [de hoofdstad van Sierra Leone] is loaded. “If you look at the amount of drugs that came from that ship, it cannot be true that all layers did not cooperate in this operation.”

According to various sources, Leijdekkers has a relationship with the daughter of President Maada Bio. That may make extradition difficult.

De Telegraaf reported this month that the Netherlands had launched an operation with special police and navy units to try to arrest Leijdekkers at sea in West Africa. That action was reportedly canceled at the last minute. Van Weel wanted in there make no statements about it.