Why Did Dutch Prosecutors Derail Landmark Murder Case against Big Tobacco Companies?
By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES
It was the first ever criminal case against the tobacco industry alleging murder, manslaughter, and aggravated assault. Anne Marie van Veen, a Dutch lung cancer patient, and an Amsterdam lawyer, Bénédicte Ficq, filed a criminal complaint in 2016 accusing major tobacco companies of intentionally aiming to turn smokers into addictsand of causing “deliberate damage to public health”. Backed by more than 20 different groups including the Dutch family doctors’ association, the city of Amsterdam and the Nederlands’ main cancer hospital, lawsuit targeted Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco Benelux. The complaint filed in Amsterdam alleged:
“…the multinationals were guilty of “attempted murder, alternatively attempted manslaughter and/or attempted and premeditated severe physical abuse and/or attempted and premeditated injuring of health”.
However, in February of this year, Dutch public prosecutors refused to open a formal criminal investigation into four major international tobacco companies on charges of attempted murder or manslaughter, saying there is too little chance of a conviction. According to the UK Guardian, the prosecutors said in a written statement that within current Dutch legislation they could see no prospect of a successful prosecution against tobacco companies, ruling that smoking was “deadly, and the design of cigarettes contributes to that, but the tobacco producers do not … act in breach of the laws and rules”.
Dutch lung cancer patient alleged Big Tobacco deliberately targeted children to get them addicted
In 2014, van Veen was diagnosed with lung cancer, Stage-4. She began smoking when she was 15-years-old. At the time she was still a child and did not realize the disastrous impact smoking would have on her as she got older, according to the lawsuit. She stated the reason she filed suit against the tobacco manufactures is that she is of the opinion that the tobacco industry knowingly sought to make her addicted to tobacco at a young age:
” I am convinced that tobacco manufacturers deliberately set out to get children addicted, just as they got me addicted. And I want to protect children from that suffering,” Anne Marie van Veen.
Lawyer Bénédicte Ficq stated at the time the criminal complaint was filed:
“When I began to study all the additives that cause, enhance and maintain addiction, I nearly fell off my chair in shock at all the manipulated additives in cigarettes. They have just one goal, and that is to get people addicted.People do not realize just how manipulated a cigarette is today. We want to make that clear to the Public Prosecutors Office, and we are convinced that when, like us, it understands what tobacco manufacturers put on the market, it too will conclude that it amounts to “causing grievous bodily harm”.
Lawyer Bénédicte Ficq
Dutch Association of cigarette and tobacco manufactures call lawsuit a “publicity stunt”
Credit: Wnpr.org Wikipedia Commons / Chris Vaughan / Cigarette and tobacco manufacturers argued that they are changed companies from the past, and are striving to make a safer product; and that the tobacco industry is more closely regulated by the government.
The Dutch association of cigarette and tobacco manufacturers had argued that the demand for criminal prosecution was little more than a publicity stunt and that it was “confident the sale of a legal, heavily regulated product is not a crime”, as reported in the UK Guardian.
“Smoking is deadly and the design of cigarettes does add to this but according to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (DPPS), the tobacco manufacturers have not acted in violation of either the law or the current regulatory framework,” the service said in an English-language statement. “Not everyone starts to smoke and there are people who do manage to stop,” the DPPS said. “This element of freedom of choice in the chain of cause and effect means that the negative consequences of smoking cannot be attributed to the tobacco manufacturers under criminal law.”
Meanwhile, van Veen vows continue fight to protect children from addiction to nicotine
“We won’t give up the fight,” Anne Marie van Veen vowed.
For More Information On Van Veen’s Battle Against Big Tobacco See her website:stichtingrookpreventiejeugd.nl.
