PowNed will no longer be prosecuted for broadcasting secretly made recordings of Onno Hoes, the former mayor of Maastricht. The Amsterdam court says that the suspicions against the broadcaster are largely unproven.
According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), PowNed had “contributed to the social debate” and “exposed a grievance”. Therefore, the OM also believed that PowNed should go free.
Hoes filed a complaint in 2014 after a broadcast of PowNews, which showed secretly made recordings of meetings between then-mayor Hoes and a twenty-year-old student. The two had met through social media and met twice in a café.
The student had contacted PowNed before those meetings and agreed to attach a camera with a microphone under his shirt. The man wore this recording equipment during the meetings, allowing the conversations between him and Hoes to be secretly recorded. During the meetings, Hoes made sexually suggestive remarks to the man. The student was acquitted in January, in line with the wishes of the Public Prosecution Service.
Hoes had previously lost a civil case over the same issue. Even before the meetings with the student, Hoes had already been in the news because of his behavior in his private life. He lost his job due to the PowNed case.
The Public Prosecution Service previously dismissed the case against the student and PowNed. But after a complaint procedure from Hoes, the Public Prosecution Service still had to proceed with prosecution. Partly because of this, it took a long time before the case could be handled.