Day 1 of the court case against Maarten was on September 23, 2004, in an extra-high security courtroom in Gothenburg. The session began at 9 a.m.

First prosecutor Thomas Ahlstrand began with the charge: Maarten is suspected of having hit a police officer on the head with a stick while standing on the containers on July 14, 2001, while the Hvitfeldtska school was surrounded by the police.

Next it's the defence's turn. Maarten's attorney, Stig Centerwall, is speaking on his behalf. He confirms that Maarten was resent in the school, was standing on the containers and was helping people to get up onto the containers.
At one point, an officer orders him to come down; at the moment that Maarten is about to do that, he is pushed in his back and falls down.

There, several officers sit on his legs and back, push his head against the ground and hit him several times. He is subsequently arrested and brought to a bus and is some time later brought to a police station.
Centerwall emphasises that Maarten had no stick or any other such object in his hands whilst standing on the containers, nor did he hit anyone.

After these initial salvoes, the prosecutor makes a curious statement.
He complains about the fact that he has not had all the information. As such, he does not know which videos the defence is planning to show, he has not been able to look at them, and he does not know the names of the witnesses. He adds that he has been unable to prepare his case well and then the kicker: 'This could mean that Maarten Blok wasn't at all the one who hit the officer.' He is to repeat this a few more times that morning.

Subsequently, he says that he finds it strange that Maarten has not done everything in his power to prove his innocence. A normal person would submit information demonstrating his or her innocence in a situation like that, right? He therefore does not understand why Maarten has not submitted the videos and the names of the witnesses, hereby more or less suggesting that Maarten might not be as innocent as he claims.
Afterwards, he focuses on the fact that Maarten was deported to the Netherlands in the first place and was released without charges. According to Ahlstrand, this is due to the fact that everyone who was arrested inside the cordon was charged with disrupting the public order.

Since this was more than 300 persons, it had been decided to let everyone go; there was simply no time to process each of the cases. It is usual for Sweden that foreigners who commit a not very serious offence (such as shoplifting) are simply deported without charges. Had Maarten been immediately charged with battery of a police officer, he certainly would not have been let go again, according to Ahlstrand.

The fact that the battered officer subsequently did not press charges until September 5, says Ahlstrand, has nothing to do with the fact that the letter from Maarten arrived at the same moment, in which he had filed a complaint against Sweden for depriving him of his liberty and violating his right to demonstrate. These are merely conspiracy theories, says the prosecutor, which are far from reality.

Subsequently he returns to the fact that he had not yet seen the videos and names of the witnesses. He further says that he had asked the Netherlands for permission to interrogate Maarten in the Netherlands, but that he never got an answer to this question. (This is interesting, because during the trials in the Netherlands as to whether the extradition of Maarten to Sweden was permissible, the attorney for the state said that no request had come from Sweden to hear Maarten in the Netherlands.

Ahlstrand has seen two video films. One from the police itself, filmed on June 14, 2001 between 8pm and 8.20pm. There is nothing special in this one; it was still quiet at that time, and the police therefore
stopped filming, according to Ahlstrand. Nor is there anything to be found in the other films that has anything to do with Maarten, says Ahlstrand. He has no need to show the films in the courtroom and accepts that nothing happened between 8pm and 8.20pm.

After a short recess, Centerwall presents three films. These films show from three different angles that Maarten is standing on the containers, unarmed and tranquil, and that he is ordered to jump down by a police officer at one point. There are things happening up on the containers, but it is clear to see that is quite a distance away from Maarten.

Subsequently, Centerwall points to a number of things from the file. For instance, various photos had been used in police line-ups. No match had been provided on the arrest form. In general, the forms are filled in poorly, incompletely and differently every time, in fact by many different persons. The attorney also indicates the fact that one of the police officers had made a statement that the one who supposedly committed the battery had half-long hair. (Maarten was shaved bald.)

Next he returns to the extradition form once more. This form says nothing about violence against a police officer. It says that Maarten is being extradited because he is 'expected' to do something, that he participated in a group that is 'expected' to commit crimes.

Next it is time for the first witness, Raymond Jönsson, the police officer who was allegedly hit on the head with a stick. He states that he was standing on the containers with a colleague, without a shield or a club, surveying the situation. He subsequently got stuck in a net on top of the container and was then hit on the head with a big stick. His colleague saw this and came to his assistance. After a short struggle, they saw the chance to push the person from the container, according to Jönsson. He did not see what the person looked like, but says that he is certain that this person was arrested on the ground. Jönsson is injured later on during the EU summit and subsequently goes on vacation. When he came back to work in August, it was agreed upon that officers that had had something happen to them should press charges.

After seeing the defence's films (in which, among other things, it can be seen that an officer is pushed by someone, falls down and gets stuck, after which he pushes his attacker off together with a colleague) he states that that was not the situation he described, that he was never in that place.Because Maarten is also visible in that video, it must have happened at an earlier point, according to Jönsson. He maintains that he had pushed the person off, that he saw that person try to climb up again and that he saw that that person was detained, but he can not remember for the life of him how that person looked, what kind of clothes he was wearing or what kind of hairstyle he had. Even now that he sees Maarten in the courtroom, he can not say for sure if it was Maarten or someone else
after all.

Centerwall's examination of Jönsson can be summarised in brief: 'I don't know anymore, it was a long time again, what I stated then, I maintain, but I can't remember anything else.'
Next it's Maarten's turn. At the prosecutor's request, he repeats his story about what happened before and after his arrest. The prosecutor comes to the conclusion that if this is true, there are two possibilities: either the police are lying or it is a case of a mix-up.
He subsequently asks Maarten if he thinks that he was mixed-up with someone else. Maarten agrees.

After a short break, it is Jönsson's colleague's turn, Mikael Wallin. He is the one who was standing together with Jönsson on the containers at the moment that the (alleged) stick incident happened. He tells the same story as his colleague, and like Jönsson can no longer remember much of the situation. Nor can he recognise Maarten in the courtoom as the one who supposedly did the hitting, but for that matter he cannot say that it wasn't Maarten.

What's more, he says that he knows for sure, as does his colleague, that the person who did the hitting was arrested on the ground. Wallin states that he had called out ot a police unit from Stockholm that they had to arrest that person because he had hit a policeman, and that this unit did so.
The next two witnesses that the prosecutor calls are two of the officers from this Stockholm unit.

The first, Löwinder, did in fact arrest someone on the ground. The other one, Jörgen Nilsson, was not present then, but did accompany the suspect to the bus together with Löwinder somewhat later on. Löwinder states once more that he can not remember much of the events. He confirms that he stated that the suspect, as far as he knows, was wearing a white helmet. He says that he is sure it must have been Maarten, because he took his passport before taking him to the bus and wrote down his name and passport number on the arrest form. It had been the only person he arrested in those days, so it must have been Maarten. As to why he did not sign this statement and did not note the time of day, Löwinder has no explanation. He confirms Wallin's version of the story. They had been called from the top of the container to arrest this person because he had supposedly hit an officer, and they did so. As to who called to them, Löwinder can no longer remember.

The second officer from the Stockholm unit does not have much to add to this. He had only led someone to the bus, as stated, does not know who that was, and can neither confirm or deny, looking at Maarten, that it was him. He does confirm that he had stated in a telephone interrogation that it was a person with half-long hair.
Meanwhile, it is about 5 in the afternoon, and the session is adjourned for this day.

At the end of the first trial day, feelings are mixed. In and of itself, it had been revealed during the session that the prosecutor did not have a strong case. All the same, journalists and followers of previous trials emphasised that acquittal was very improbable. The police officers maintained the story that Maarten's passport number had been written down and that he was therefore guilty. Experience showed that the court would not dispute this. The contradictory statements would be of subsidiary importance. It was up to the defence to make clear that the officers' story was false.
Upon more closely studying the video pictures, the attorney said that he thought he could recognise the ID number of one of the police witnesses.

This would demonstrate that the officers had lied under oath before the court on the first day of the trial. Members of the support group departed at that point to Copenhagen to pick up some urgently located video footage. That night, pictures were captured that showed the ID number, and these were printed by a local printing press just before the beginning of the next day's session. With this, the attorney had evidence in his hands that the officers from the first day had not spoken the truth when they claimed that they could not be seen in the defence's video footage.



The second trial day, September 24, 2004.

The second day's session is reserved for the defence's witnesses. Stig Centerwall, Maarten's attorney, would however like to talk about something else. He wants to show the last film from yesterday once more. In this, it is possible to see that an officer up on top of the containers is pushed by someone, falls and gets stuck in a net. Together with his colleague, he manages to push his attacker off the container.

In the pictures it can also be seen that Maarten is standing quite a distance away, also on the container; it is therefore impossible that he could have been the one to push the officer. Officer Jönsson, the one who claimed to be have been hit with a stick on his head, had stated on the first day of the trial that it wasn't him, and that he had never been in that place.

Meanwhile, hard copies have been made of the pictures of the officer who was attacked in the video. Centerwall shows these to the judge, the prosecutor and Jönsson and asks them to especially note the number on the police helmet. It turns out that this is the number from Jönsson's helmet. He had submitted his helmet as evidence, and every officer has his own individual number. Centerwall asserts that this demonstrates that it had not been Maarten who attacked the officer, but that it must have been someone else. Aside from the fact that this is not battery with a stick, but that Jönsson is pushed over, it is precisely the situation that Jönsson has described.

After these pictures, the prosecutor speaks. He says to Jönsson, 'now we have een that you are the one in these pictures, there is no longer a doubt about that. Did you fall and sink into the net more than once?' 'I don't know.' 'Can you remember this situation?' 'I don't know anymore, I only know that I had been hit with a stick.' 'Could it not be the case that you made up a story yourself because of the whole commotion, and mixed-up facts?' 'I don't know it all exactly anymore, I only know that I had been hit with a stick. I stand by my statement of yesterday. This situation must have happened earlier that day.'
Centerwall also has urgent questions for Jönsson. He asks whether Jönsson perhaps was attacked twice. The officer can't remember.

Centerwall also asks how it is that Jönsson stated yesterday that he did not have a shield or a club with him, but in these pictures, he does, had he climbed down an extra time to pick these up? Jönsson doesn't know anymore, but says that it is possible; they had been up on the containers for more than half an hour.

Afterwards, it is the defence witnesses' turn. The first two were with Maarten at the point that they left the school to try to get over the containers. They saw that Maarten was standing on the containers helping people up, that he was unarmed and that not much else was happening until he suddenly fell down. There he landed on the ground, where he was arrested with great force by a number of police officers. Afterwards, the people who were standing in the vicinity were pushed away by other officers and ultimately arrested.

The other two witnesses were standing outside the police cordon at that point, but could see very well what was happening on the containers. One of them stated that he remembered Maarten well because everyone else who managed to climb up onto the containers immediately jumped off onto the outside to escape. Maarten was the only one who remained standing to help others to get up onto the containers. The prosecutor apparently lost his nerve a bit after seeing the photos. The clear statements from the witnessed do not improve his case either. He therefore really has no questions to the witnesses.

After lunch it is time for the prosecutor's sentencing request and Stig Centerwall's closing statement. Ahlstrandat first ranges out for a while onto all sorts of topics, for instance the fact that it had been suggested that Maarten was prosecuted because he had himself filed a complained. Nonsense, according to Ahlstrand.
Afterwards, he says that Maarten in no case should have to stay in Sweden, that even if he is convicted, he can immediately go back to the Netherlands, and that they would have to decide there if he in fact needs to serve his entire sentence. He must admit that it can not be disproved after these two days that there was a mix-up. He therefore makes no sentencing request, and leaves it up to the judge.

Stig Centerwall especially does not want the different police officers to get off so lightly. He doesn't believe for one second that the two on the containers can't remember anything else about the events. Police officers who are attacked in a situation like that, or even are attacked twice as they claim, should certainly be able to remember that, said Centerwall.

He returns to Jönsson's statement about the shield and the club. Jönsson claims that he was without a shield and a club up on the container when he was attacked and hit with a stick. The pictures where we see that he is pushed over must have been taken before that time, because Maarten is still in them. This line of reasoning must therefore mean that Jönsson, having been pushed down and pelted with bottles and sticks by a mob that had formed around the containers, had climbed down, put down his shield and club and climbed back up onto the containers. This is the point when Maarten would have attacked him. A complete lack of credibility, according to Centerwall. An officer does not put down his protective gear if he has just been struck in order to go look around some more. It is clear; there has definitely been a mix-up and Maarten must be set free.

After the judge goes into his chambers to determine whether he will pronounce a verdict that afternoon or later, we sit in suspense back in the courtroom a half hour later. The judge doesn't beat around the bush.

It is clear that Jönsson was attacked and that Maarten was arrested. It is, however, unclear if those events are connected. A mistake was possibly made and there is great doubt as to whether Maarten has attacked an officer. In any case, it is not possible to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that Maarten is guilty; he must therefore be acquitted.
Maarten gets his personal effects back, has to fill in some forms and can leave the courthouse.

MAARTEN IS FREE!!!!!!