Notorious fugitive Dutch arms dealer dies in South Africa

A timber merchant turned arms dealer, one of the Netherlands’ most infamous international fugitives, has died peacefully in South Africa after evading justice for years.

Guus Kouwenhoven, who facilitated weapons shipments to the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor in the early 2000s, was sentenced in absentia to 19 years for illegal arms smuggling and complicity in war crimes in 2017.

Despite being arrested in Cape Town, he was released on bail and avoided extradition, living a life of luxury, until his death last week.

Taylor, who was himself given a 50-year prison sentence in The Hague for crimes against humanity, waged civil wars in Liberia until 2003 that killed over 150,000 people. Kouwenhoven’s dealings with him were seen as instrumental to the fighting, which was notorious for its brutality and widespread use of child soldiers.

The Liberian press described Kouwenhoven as a reminder of the country’s violent past, referring to “blood timber”, and asked how someone could get away with turning the timber trade into a currency for war.

So far nothing has been said by Dutch justice minister David van Weel, despite the scale and notoriety of the case. Efforts to have him extradited were complicated and delayed even after South Africa revoked his visa, and his exuberant lifestyle reportedly went unhindered.

Given the recent efforts by Van Weel to push for Sierra Leone to extradite fugitive drugs baron Jos Leijdekkers – even by asking the EU to cut off development aid to the country until it hands him over – Kouwenhoven seems to have escaped proportional scrutiny in his final years, a Volkskrant column argued.