Marengo
Photography is not allowed in the courtrooms in the Netherlands, but drawing is. Aloys Oosterwijk is a prominent courtroom artist who mainly works for the Dutch press agency ANP. He made many reports in the courtroom, for example about Willem Holleeder. He published several books with his drawings. His latest book, Marengo, that he made with journalist Marieke de Witte, was awarded the Stripschapspenning. This case lasted six years and had 142 courtroom sessions.
Marengo is one of the largest and most high-profile court cases in Dutch historyMarieke de Witte and Aloys Oosterwijk followed the liquidation process around prime suspect Ridouan Taghi from the beginning. This resulted in a visual report of what took place inside and outside the courtroom.
Oosterwijk’s drawings show in detail what happened in De Bunker, the heavily secured courthouse in Amsterdam-Osdorp, but also paint a picture of the unimaginable violence that came with the case.
De Witte grippingly reports on an ongoing criminal case and all the atrocities associated with it, including the shocking murders of the brother of the crown witness, lawyer Derk Wiersum and crime journalist Peter R. de Vries.
In 2019 he published a book about the process of Willem Holleeder, nicknamed “the Nose”, due to his rather big nose.
Oosterwijk is now working on a new graphic crime novel, he is still sketching in the courtroom.
