WILLEMSTAD – Today the Public Prosecution presented its accusations against the former Prime Minister of Curaçao, Gerrit Schotte and his life partner Cicely van der Dijs in the case called Babel.

 

The first offense that Cicely van der Dijs is suspected of is forgery. She is accused of falsifying invoices of the company Vanddis Inc. during the period from January 1, 2010 to July 1, 2010 in Curaçao and/or Italy. One invoice for the sum of 140 thousand dollars and another for more than 73 thousand dollars. In contrary to the truth, it is noted on these invoices that the company has done work for F.Corallo’s Italian company Betplus.

 

The second offense is money laundering. She is accused of laundering money in the period January 1, 2010 to November 15, 2011 in Curaçao, United States and/or Zwitserland and/or Italy. The amount indicated by the public prosecution is 200 thousand dollars.

 

The third accusation is the possession of seven so-called jammers (devices that allows one to block phone calls). This is an offense under the Criminal Code and according to the National Ordinance on telecommunication facilities.

 

The former Prime Minister of Curaçao, Gerrit Schotte is being accused of five offenses. The first offense that he is suspected of is bribery, corruption. He is accused of having accepted 140 thousand dollars and also 73 thousand dollars from the F. Corallo during the period from January 1, 2010 to October 8, 2010 in Curaçao and/or the United States and/or Switzerland. He did this as a civil servant.

 

These gifts were made to him so that he could favor Corallo and his companies, provide secret government information to Corallo, give Corallo influence in the Curaçao government via the newly created political party MFK, ensure that Corallo would be recommended internationally on behalf of Curaçao, and to ensure that Corallo or persons of his businesses would receive and important institutional function.

 

The second offense is forgery. He is charged with falsifying two invoices from the company Vanddis Inc. in the period of January 1 to July 1, 2010 in Curaçao and/or Italy.

 

The third offense is money laundering. He is accused of laundering money in the period January 1, 2010 to November 15, 2011 in Curaçao, United States and/or Zwitserland and/or Italy. The amount indicated by the public prosecution is 200 thousand dollars. This amount came through forged invoices via banks abroad to the suspect and his partner.

 

The fourth accusation is the possession of seven so-called jammers (devices that allows one to block phone calls). This is an offense under the Criminal Code and according to the National Ordinance on telecommunication facilities.

 

The last offense relates to forgery on April 15, 2013 in Curaçao. Schotte filed a report indicated the loss of his diplomatic passport. This report untruthfully states that the diplomatic passport was lost, while it was found in the safe of his partners’ company Vanddis Inc.

 

Curacao Chronicle