Belvedere: --- A well known businessman is now seeking the assistance from the Dutch police to investigate an incident he considers to be wrong. The man said that his son is being harassed by the new set of gendarmes who recently came to the island. The businessman said the gendarmes stopped his son who is driving a new Magnum and asked him where he got such a vehicle from and if he the young man is involved in the drug trade.
The man said his son provided the authorities with the documents for his vehicle and felt the matter was over. He said surprisingly the gendarmes were parked in Belvedere parking lot on Monday controlling vehicles. He said his son was parked in the parking lot speaking to someone on the phone when suddenly the gendarmes went up to his car and began pounding on the vehicle window asking him the same questions pertaining to where he got his vehicle.
The man who prefers not to identify himself said the gendarmes even told his son he has to speak French and not English with them. More troubling for the businessman is that the Gendarmes who are always complaining about the Dutch police crossing the border on high chase was on the Dutch side of the island conducting traffic controls. The businessman who is well known to the police and gendarmes has photographs of the incident. It is understood the authorities on the Dutch side of the island opened an investigation into the incident.
In an invited comment Prosecutor Rienk Mud said his office is aware of the controls that were being conducted by the gendarmes on the wrong side of the border. He said they already sent a message to their counterpart on the French side Prosecutor Jacques Louvier indicating to him that the gendarmes has no jurisdiction on the Dutch side of the island and it is intolerable for them to be conducting traffic controls on that side of the island. Mud said the prosecutor’s office is awaiting a response from their counterpart.
Commandant Arrousseau in an invited comment said the new gendarmes who are not familiar with the island mistakenly went over on the wrong side of the border. He said a Dutch side police pointed this out to the gendarmes who eventually moved from where they were.