Twins Naila and Bryan from Tiel were illegally adopted: 'Shut your mouth, close your ears, close everything'

ARNHEM - A pregnancy of 10 and a half months, a groom who cannot remember his wedding party and an adoptive mother who does not remember when and where she first saw her children. The adoption of 'twins' Naila and Bryan from Tiel is rattling.

Naila and Bryan are doing fine. The twins are in group 8, like to exercise and their friends are walking down the door. Naila and Bryan's parents are not their biological parents. The children have known this since 2016. Then their parents Jakob and Ika had to confess this fact under heavy pressure from a radical and international police investigation: We are not your real mom and dad.

Adoption is barred, human trafficking is not

Jakob and his wife Ika from Tiel stood before the court in Arnhem yesterday. They heard the Public Prosecution Service (OM) demand a four-year prison sentence for the illegal adoption of their two children from Indonesia. The illegal adoption, which took place in 2010, has now expired, but this does not apply to the other criminal offenses: forgery of documents, human trafficking and 'embezzlement of state'. The latter means: leaving children insecure about their parentage and origin.

Jakob insists that in 2010 he knew no better than: these are my biological children. They were born in Indonesia in October 2009. Their biological mother, Novia, is said to have died ten days after the twins were born. The fact that a DNA test in the Netherlands shows that they are not Jacob's children and that they are not brother and sister of each other, has 'just as surprised' him.

Children from affair?

Jakob has always stated that he and Novia had an affair in Indonesia. Later he adapted that story; he paid her for sex. According to Jakob, the poor Novia agreed with that, on the condition that they entered into a Muslim marriage.

How and when Ika found out about her husband's affair and the birth of Naila and Bryan remained unclear. The court concluded that Jakob and Ika have always changed their statements about this and that they contradict each other. They say little at the hearing itself. "I don't know, ma'am," Ika keeps repeating. Jacob alternates: 'I can't say that' and 'I don't want to say that'.

Stamps are incorrect

This does not do your credibility any good, the court warned if the suspects do not answer big life questions such as: where and when did you first see the children and when did Novia get pregnant?

This is not doing your credibility any good

Arnhem court against suspects

Stamps in Jakob's passport showed that he was not in Indonesia around the time of conception. That Novia got pregnant with him during a lightning visit to Antwerp, in December 2008, as Jakob later recalled, seems to the court firm: "Calculated backwards, she would have had a pregnancy of ten and a half months."

Ball rolls

The Public Prosecution also said it doubted whether Novia even existed at all: her death papers and marriage certificate are not real and no photos have been found of her wedding day with Jakob. And if she did exist, according to the OM, she may not have been the biological mother of the children.

The ball around the adoption started rolling when Jakob and Ika wanted to register the children in the Netherlands in the municipality of Tiel and the civil servant did not trust the birth certificates. The council then continued to press for better proof of parentage. When that did not materialize, it led to a police investigation in the Netherlands and Jakarta.

Wiretaps

Their telephones were also tapped. In an overheard conversation, a panicky Jakob says that he thinks he will disappear behind bars for six to eight years, because 'the evidence is everywhere: at home and abroad'. Ika is also very concerned when a house search is carried out in Jakarta. In a text message to her family in Indonesia, she writes: 'Shut up, shut your ears, shut everything!'.

The evidence is everywhere: at home and abroad

Suspected illegal adoption in tapped telephone conversation

There are also many questions about the role of Ika's family in the adoption of Naila and Bryan, it appears at the hearing. The OM assumes that this may have helped with 'the rustling of children', something that is common in Indonesia and quite easy to arrange. After the birth of the children, Jakob and Ika appear to have transferred large sums of money to Ika's family in Indonesia.

Stay silent

According to Ika, she would indeed have looked after the children for some time, while she and her husband did their best to obtain the documents with which they could arrange emergency passports for the children at the Dutch embassy.

According to the OM, both suspects have been given the opportunity for years to answer that one question, the most important one: who are Naila and Bryan? And whose are they? Possibly there are four parents whose child was taken against their will? The fact that their adoptive parents remain silent is 'very heavily held to them'.

A time bomb

“We just want to give them a good life here”, Jakob and Ika nod. That certainly will, replied the OM, and Naila and Bryan seem to be making up for it. “But what seems good here could be a time bomb in the long run. Numerous studies show that the damage is irreparable if children find out that they have been lied to about their origins. ”

When they hear demanded four years in prison, Jakob and Ika look straight ahead. Their lawyer thinks the requirement is too heavy. In similar cases, adoptive parents got off with community service and a fine. According to the lawyer, it seems as if the Public Prosecution wants Naila and Bryan to be taken away from their adoptive parents, because there is no other way when they go to prison: "And how is that in the interests of these children?"

A bag with two umbilical cords

A bag with pacifiers, blankets and also: two umbilical cords and a tuft of hair. The police found this in the home of Jakob and Ika. The umbilical cords, research found, belong to their adopted children Naila and Bryan. And the tuft of hair is from a 'relative in the female line' of adoptive mother Ika.

The Public Prosecution said at the hearing in Arnhem yesterday that an expert in the field of adoption from Indonesia has looked into it. According to that expert in Indonesia there are all kinds of symbolic meanings to the hair and the umbilical cords.

These 'gifts' can indicate 'kinship' and 'consent of the biological mother': she gives these very personal things to someone she trusts with her children. Part of the umbilical cord is also buried and ensures a 'permanent connection with the place of birth'.