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Innocent

The multi-millionaire international businessman and financier Nicholas Van Hoogstraten is entirely innocent of any involvement with the 1999 murder of the former slum bedsit landlord and serial fraudster Mohammed Sabir Raja.

Nicholas was charged with the murder of Raja on 24th September 2001 and after a sensational and bizarre 13-week trial at the Old Bailey was, on 22nd July 2002, unanimously found not guilty of murder. However he was (due to the material misdirection of the trial judge) by a majority jury decision of 11 to 1, and on the eighth day of their deliberations, found guilty of manslaughter. Subsequently, on 25th October 2002, Nicholas was sentenced to a term of 10 years imprisonment.

Nicholas has been wrongly convicted in what must rank as one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice in recent years.

A combination of factors contrived and converged together to achieve this wrongful conviction, including:

  • police corruption and conspiracy with the prime suspect
  • legally inadmissable hearsay testimony from the Raja family and their legal executive
  • a bigoted and psychotic trial judge, inexperienced in criminal law
  • an incompetent, lazy and dishonest defence legal team whose primary interest was to extract as much money as possible from their wealthy client
  • a dishonest and incompetent cocaine snorting defence solicitor

February 27, 2003

Leave to Appeal

The Court of Appeal granted Nicholas leave to appeal his manslaughter conviction on 3 grounds:

  1. The misdirection by the judge in respect of the law on joint enterprise
  2. That the option of manslaughter should not have been left to the jury
  3. That inadmissible, seriously prejudicial and highly suspect hearsay “evidence” should not have been allowed.

July 23, 2003

Conviction quashed

The Court of Appeal today quashed the conviction of Nicholas, indicated a retrial, and outrageously denied him bail. This perverse decision was made after an objection from one of the police detectives who is already facing investigation for corruption. Nicholas was also awarded his defence costs of over £1,000,000 out of Central Funds.


Dec 9, 2003

Verdict ∼ Not Guilty

Following further hearings in the Court of Appeal and at the Old Bailey, Mr. van Hoogstraten was finally declared not guilty of any involvement in the death of Mohammed Raja. This brought an end to almost two and a half years of police/prosecution dishonesty and legal/judicial incompetence in a case that should never have been brought. The case was always reliant on tainted evidence and weak circumstantial evidence. Mr. van Hoogstraten has indicated that he will now ensure that the full facts are exposed, and will commence his own legal action against a number of parties involved with this prosecution.

 

Watch this space for more detail of the conspiracy to “fit up” Nicholas –

  • the incompetence of Richard Ferguson Q.C. who (unknown to  Nicholas) had passed his “sell by” date as a barrister

  • the cocaine snorting solicitor who sought to blackmail Nicholas for £500,000

  • the motive of the Raja family to get Nicholas convicted, as opposed to the real culprit – a £5,000,000 civil claim for “compensation”