PHILIPSBURG--After the prosecutor dropped charges against Claudius “Toontje” Buncamper in the Appeals Court on May 11, the suspended member of parliament was fully acquitted of tax evasion and forgery on Monday.
The case was referred back to the court in St. Maarten by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands on March 16, 2021, on the grounds that “the evidence does not automatically show that the defendant has led the offences committed by Eco Green and therefore the ruling is insufficiently motivated.”
The court in Philipsburg also considered that what he was accused of had not been proven and acquitted Buncamper on all counts.
The criminal investigation “BuMo” (contraction of Buncamper-Molanus, the names of the suspect and his wife Maria Buncamper-Molanus) has cost the St. Maarten community a fortune and yielded little, according to the politician. “What does Eco Green owe the Land of St. Maarten? $2,000 in tax arrears? I wouldn’t know. What exactly Eco Green has done wrong, the verdict doesn’t say.”
The joy over his acquittal was short-lived, Buncamper said. “What sticks is a bitter feeling. This BuMo case, it has taken 12 years. Twelve years of fighting for justice and clearing of our name.”
Seven of the eight charges brought against Buncamper and his wife by the St. Maarten Prosecutor’s Office were dismissed by the Court of Appeals, Buncamper wrote two years ago in an open letter.
“What remained was a sentence for not having filled out a tax return form correctly. Therefore, we received a fine and community service. Mind you, the tax return form in question was filled out and submitted by a European Dutch accountant – a professional and previous employee of the St. Maarten Tax Inspectorate Office, whose independent services years after his tenure with the St. Maarten Tax Inspectorate Office were contracted to file same taxes correctly.”
This specific matter was then subject of cassation with the Supreme Court in the Netherlands.
“For us, it’s also a matter of principle,” Buncamper said. And it still is, according to his reflections after the ruling on Monday. “I believe the cardinal question that still needs to be answered is: which crime did Eco Green commit? The verdict is clear that this question will not be answered because I’m already being acquitted.”
The problem with that is simple, he said. “What is there to hide? They didn’t see the need to answer the question because they knew that the answer would open the door for my wife to request a revisiting of her case.”
Attorney Jairo Bloem said on Monday, that while justice finally had been done for Claudius Buncamper, he hopes that the same can soon be said for Maria Buncamper also.
“Within the system of law and as for the prevailing jurisprudence of the Supreme Court about criminal liability of corporations and their alleged factual managers, one first establishes if a company is culpable,” Bloem said.
“The legal threshold for such culpability is lower than the threshold for culpability of possible factual managers or directors. By law, factual managers can only possibly be found guilty if the corporation for which they work is first found guilty. In other words: culpability of corporations is a prerequisite for investigating and analysing if a factual leader or director of said corporation is also guilty.”
The Court of Appeals now turned this around and first adjudicated Buncamper’s culpability, his attorney stated. “He was found not guilty, regardless if the company is guilty or not.”
Bloem noted that one can question this methodology and also whether it fits within the closed criminal procedural, step-by-step, system. “Be it as it may, if the Court of Appeals would have ruled on the criminal culpability of the company Eco Green and such ruling resulted in the acquittal of Eco Green, this could have far-reaching consequences for the for now-still-irrevocable verdict in the case of Maria Buncamper.”
Such a decision would justify a revision demand for the verdict in the case of Maria Buncamper, the attorney explained. “Considering the evidence that was reintroduced in this case after it regretfully went missing previously with Court of Appeals, Eco Green had a fair chance, in my opinion, to be fully acquitted. The potential consequences thereof, namely the subsequent acquittal also of Maria Buncamper, cannot be denied.”
As such, the defence was looking forward to a customary step-by-step decision by the Court of Appeals, meaning a ruling first on the culpability of Eco Green. This was not rendered, Bloem concluded, saying: “Hopefully new evidence and data surge in the near future that would still allow Maria Buncamper to seek the revision and the acquittal that she also deserves.”
