Amigoe: OM and Defense Not Happy with Statements Cohen

Amigoe: January 23, 2006; OM and defense not happy with statements Cohen

ARUBA — The Public Prosecutor (OM) has called Steve Cohen, spokesperson of the Strategic Communications Task Force in the United States to account his statements in Dr. Phil’s show of last week. During the show in question, Cohen had declared that the OM is of the opinion that the three boys are guilty of the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. The OM had asked Cohen in a letter where he got the information from and called him to account the fact that he declared the three boys guilty.

“As Public Prosecutor, we are not allowed to comment on the question whether a person is guilty or not, and we will never do that either, neither will we relinquish detailed information from the investigation”, said spokesperson Mariaine Croes of the OM. It upsets the OM that Cohen, as official spokesperson of Aruba, has done this. Also the lawyer of the Kalpoe brothers, David Kock, has indicated not being pleased at all with the firm statements of Cohen. He says that Cohen should have maintained the indication that the three boys are suspects, but Cohen decided to assume the judge’s position by indicating firmly that they are guilty and his statements are considered very important since he is partly being paid by the government.

Cohen explained his certainty by indicating that he was talking before an American public. “There is no doubt about the OM trying to prove this assumption. It is very common in the United States that the OM says that the suspect is guilty and in the mean time continues to try to prove this assumption. If I have acted differently, it would have been interpreted as if I am participating in a cover-up.”

Cohen made his statements in a tense, negative environment. “But we think that we were better off showing up than cancel. For most of the viewers, we were calm and reasonably perspective.” Cohen says being pleased that he could mention the three most important issues: that the investigation is on-going, that we are still looking for forensic evidence, and that the witnesses in Alabama as well as in Aruba will be interrogated. According to the Birmingham News, Aruban officials will go to Alabama today to interrogate Holloway’s co-students that were also interrogated in Aruba. There is one problem though; many of these students do no longer live in Mountain Brook since they went off to college somewhere else. The Aruban police and the FBI will do the interrogation.

Are we really supposed to believe that a profession American PR man like Steven Cohen misspoke when he made the comments that he did? Cohen made similar comments during a convention in Puerto Rico. It is hard to believe that with such a concerted effort at media spin for tourism in Aruba and the effects that the Natalee Holloway case has had on it that a consultant, a mouth piece for the Hotel, Tourism and Aruba government would say such comments out of turn if he had not been given the OK to say them. Media spin and appearances are orchestrated, not made up at the moment. It would more appear that the answer lies in the fact that there are two different stories that Aruba and Steve Cohen wishes to present to the public. One to the Aruba public and a different one to the American public. However, the two differ greatly when told.

So we presently have a lack of communication with Steven Cohen, the OM, the defense attorney, the ATA and the Aruban government. Steve Cohen was hired to be the official spokesperson of Aruba and there is nothing but communication errors and mistakes. If this occurs with Steve Cohen, the Aruban spokesman, one can only imagine what Dave Holloway and Beth Twitty experienced.