Court of First Instance imposes higher penalty on former Public Prosecutor spokesperson

The Court of First Instance of Curaçao today imposed an unconditional 40-hour work sentence on the suspect N.S. If this sentence is not properly executed, S. must be detained for 20 days. At the hearing on April 1st, the Public Prosecutor had demanded a suspended sentence of 60 hours, to be replaced by 30 days in custody with a probationary period of two years.

The court considers that it has been legally and convincingly proven that S., up to committing the fact to the Public Prosecutor, made a false declaration on  December 20th  2018 by knowingly and contrary to truth telling the police that his Facebook account was hacked. The defense of the counselor of S. that he acted in an emergency is not valid. The judge does not consider it plausible that S., due to death threats following a comment posted by him on Facebook, considered himself to report that his Facebook account had been hacked in violation of the truth. It appears from the file that S., at the insistence of the Attorney General and the Chief Public Prosecutor, made a report, after S. initially did not want to make a report himself.

Making a false report is punishable because there is a danger that the police and the judiciary will be misled. S. was guilty of this, especially when he worked at the Public Prosecution Service. The judge charges the suspect heavily. The judge therefore concludes that the prosecution of S. does not involve "shooting a cannon at a mosquito," as S.'s counsel has argued.

"In view of the above, there can therefore be no question of a pardon and there is reason to impose on the suspect a community service in the form of a community service of considerable duration," according to the judge.

Taking all circumstances into account, the court has concluded that the seriousness of the proven evidence is insufficiently reflected in the sentence demanded by the public prosecutor and has sentenced the suspect to community service in the form of a community service for the duration of 40 hours in the alternative 20 days in custody.