November 25th 2003 Het Parool newspaper, page 5.

Swedish courts can have demonstrator
Rob Rombouts (From a correspondent)
AMSTERDAM - Amsterdam bike mechanic Maarten Blok can be extradited to Sweden. This has been decided by the High Court. Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner is expected to follow the High Court's advice. If Donner does this, Bloks lawyer Victor Koppe will file for an injunction. Koppe hopes that the Second Chamber will get involved in the case now the matter has 'become political'. Sweden wants to try the 22 year old Amsterdamer because during the Euro Summit in Gotenborg in 2001 he is supposed to have hit a helmeted police officer on the head. Blok denies this. During the summit he was staying at a school which had been allocated by the council, when it was surrounded by the police. The area, including five hundred activists protesting against George Bush's visit and the unfair distribution of wealth around the world, was closed off with containers and nets. A police officer who had climbed on top of the containers for a better view, fell and landed in the net. An activist dented his helmet with a stick. The police officer was not injured but did get upset. Blok was arrested but the beaten officer did not recognize him. Moreover a Swedish police officer said it wasn't Blok but rather a certain Van den Burg who had hit the policeman, said Koppe during a court session in August. According to Koppe, an expert in this area, the Netherlands are in danger of becoming a 'pilot country' which complies with nine out of ten requests to extradite their own citizens. Germany refuses to extradite demonstrators who were also arrested in Gotenburg. They are tried in Germany. Amnesty International has reported that the Swedish police used excessive violence and that unusually high sentences have been imposed on demonstrators. Swedish lawyers complained they were not given access to all relevant documents. Also the police and the public prosecutors were forced to admit that video tapes which were given as evidence had chants and slogans edited into them.