ISTANBUL

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof will testify as a witness in the criminal trial of a former counterterrorism official accused of leaking state secrets to Morocco, a Dutch court said Friday.

The case centers on 65-year-old Ab el M., a former employee at the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV), the Dutch counterterrorism agency, who was arrested in October 2023 at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport while attempting to travel to Morocco carrying multiple data storage devices, according to the NL Times.

Schoof, who previously led the NCTV, will appear before the examining magistrate alongside the agency’s current chief, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg.

The Rotterdam District Court said their testimony will focus on the suspect’s role within the agency and his access to classified information.

The hearings will be held behind closed doors and will not be open to the public or media.

Prosecutors allege El M. intended to deliver sensitive government information to Moroccan intelligence services.

He had been held in pre-trial detention for nearly 20 months before being conditionally released earlier this week. The court said the release decision was based on balancing the length of the investigation with his personal circumstances.

“The personal interest of the suspect in his release has now come to outweigh the interest in criminal proceedings,” the court said, while emphasizing the seriousness of the charges.

El M. has denied the allegations.

“I have not handed over state secret information in any way, to anyone,” he said during a previous hearing.

His lawyer said his silence on the case was due to a confidentiality oath he took during his duties for the agency