Joran’s Wine Throwing Incident
***
Click Here to Watch NOVA Interview
Click Here to Listen to NOS Radio Interview with de Vries and Witteman
Transcript of the NOS radio interview with de Vries and Witteman
De Vries: I did not see it (coming) myself, but the moment when I was not watching Joran throw a glass of red wine into my face, and it was alcohol so it itched for a while, it was a strange ending of the program.
Interviewer: The ending was sort of tense wasn’t it?
De Vries: Well I think the end was not that…
Interviewer (interrupts) : Well he did not believe that you would ever apologize if it turned out to be something else.
De Vries: Well that is his good right to not believe that. But other then that, the broadcasting was spicy but did not get out of hand or anything. So I was very surprised that after the show he then suddenly throws a glass of wine into my face.
Interviewer: What do you think about this?
De Vries: Well this tells something about Joran of course.
Interviewer: What? (does it say about Joran?)
De Vries: That he cannot control his behavior. His parents did their best to insist during the broadcasting that their son was well mannered, that he always was correct with girls, that there were so many things he would just never do. Then I think to myself, well this probably was something the parents would have agreed upon in advance also our child would never do something like that.
Interviewer: He was standing here, he does not want to talk to us, he said this was the last interview we ever gave. Hmm, his mother was very angry with him.
De Vries: Yes his mother of course was embarrassed hugely, she had tried so hard to protect her son, and to present him as a well mannered young man. On the moment that after such a conversation he does something like this then everything the parents tried to do he destroys that with such an act of course.
Interviewer: What a strange ending of the broadcasting!
Paul Witteman: Yes, horrible. And ridiculous! This did not make any sense at all.
Interviewer: How do you feel about the program?
Witteman: I found it exiting and balanced.
Interviewer: People who were watching claim you have allowed Joran to talk very lengthy.
Witteman: Yes, he was of course the main guest. And Peter de Vries can take very good care of himself that was obvious in this broadcasting, verbally that is. And we now had the occasion to get the discussion going between these two, and that had not happened prior. So we let that happen. But a fact is that Joran van der Sloot was released, was interrogated in many ways, that the justice in Aruba does not see grounds for prosecution, and that juridically then there is something like, then it has to be over with, that is why we made the show now, as in; what now, how to go from here.
Interviewer: I had the feeling you were defending Joran at times during the show towards Peter de Vries.
Witteman: I honestly feel that Peter de Vries, who of course has investigated, in Aruba, but he did not found much damaging material that would make Joran closer to the qualification of a murderer, and that is why I feel why Joran during such a program, when he is being called a liar over and over again, I do not feel it being not correct to defend your guest a little bit. That would go the other way around also by the way.
Interviewer: And what Joran van der Sloot then does at the end, how would you want to qualify that?
Witteman: Incredible and hugely stupid. I mean it was of course the intention of the family van der Sloot to come her and show they want to continue their lives, and that they want to leave this case behind them, but that will be difficult as long as the body of Natalee has not been found, and when you want to get at least some understanding of the public, you of course should not perform things like this (referring to throwing wine).
Interviewer: How would you describe this broadcasting?
Witteman: The broadcasting itself, I found it to be very good and exciting.
Interviewer: The ending though was sort of strange.
Witteman: Dramatically, and nasty and incredible.
Translation by: Lazlo