“My life is a living hell”
Court story by the Today Newspaper
GREAT BAY – Not former MP Leroy de Weever, but blogger Judith Roumou was seemingly on trial yesterday morning when De Weever defended himself against accusations of theft. (See related story on page 3). Attorney Geert Hatzmann, himself a target of Roumou’s venomous insults painted a dismal picture of the blogger’s state of mind and of the actions she has deployed against his client.
“Many know her as the internet terrorist,” Hatzmann told the court, adding that the blogger has a habit of hurting, insulting and threatening her targets with so-called articles on the internet “in an as rancid and as revolting way as possible.”
Hatzmann referred to the Potfish dossier that contains complaints against Roumou from De Weever’s daughter Giovanella, Joseph Henry, Bibi Shaw, Mark Marlin and Julian Rollocks. “She calls Giovanella a whore and her boutique a brothel. This article shows a picture of a street-hooker leaning against a car.”
Furthermore, Roumou wrote that his client had hit his sister Millicent in public in her face, that she described a married man with three children as “a bisexual pedophile who is addicted to crack and coke” and that she described Bibi Shaw (another blogger – e.d.) as “a lesbian and a prostitute.”
Hatzmann took a breath, before adding: “This is only a fraction of all Judith Roumou has placed on the internet. She writes with such a frequency about such a large number of people that it is correct to speak of a tsunami of verbal diarrhea.”
Hatzmann added that Roumou has him on het black list as well. While the attorney was talking with a policeman in front of the courthouse, Roumou shouted at him that she would “bend him over and fuck him in his behind without Vaseline and that she would make sure that he will leave the island.” Afterwards, she described Hatzmann on the internet as someone with Down syndrome. On September 22 and on October 6 Hatzmann filed separate complaints against the blogger.
The attorney told the court that Roumou has a reputation on the island as a disturbed woman and as someone who is psychologically unhinged.
Roumou has depicted Leroy de Weever on the internet as Saddam Hussein and as Adolf Hitler. “She has also described him as a drunk and a homosexual pedophile who beats up women,” Hatzmann said.
On January 9 of last year, Roumou went to the Blush boutique of Giovanella de Weever “to beg for money,” Hatzmann said. Initially, the blogger claimed that it was a fundraiser for underprivileged children but when the boutique owner told her she had a similar project going and that she invited Roumou to be there, the blogger got angry. “Then she said she needed money to pay her internet.”
The next day Roumou sent several text messages to Giovanella de Weever. “She wrote that the refusal to give her money would not remain without consequences,” Hatzmann said.
A day later, January 11, Roumou went to Blush and made a “terrible scene,” the attorney continued. “She swore at Giovanella and Millicent and insulted them. This is when Giovanella called her father.”
Hatzmann noted discrepancies in statements Roumou made to the police about her reasons for being near the boutique. First it was a coincident, later it was about an appointment with Leroy de Weever to talk about a youth project. “De Weever was willing to donate if Roumou removed pictures of him with Cor Merx and Jaap van den Heuvel from the internet. Roumou refused and according to her, De Weever got angry and ill-treated her.”
The real reason for the confrontation, the attorney said, was the scene Roumou had made in the boutique. “Her personality indicates an instable mental condition (in line with her admission at the Mental health Foundation),” Hatzmann said, thereby underlining that the complaint Roumou filed against his client is unreliable.
Hatzmann contested the prosecution’s position that the video footage shows that his client is holding a tablet in his hands. “Since my client denies emphatically that he is holding the tablet, and while the footage absolutely does not show that it is a tablet, there is no other conclusion than that the footage does not show that my client took the tablet.”
The defendant told the court that the blogger has made his life “a living hell.” De Weever added, “My daughter called me about what was going on in het store. Roumou attacked my daughter. She has told me that she will not stop until I am six foot under. I have no defense against that, but I have not taken anything away from her.”
