Was Bill Gates criminally indicted in the Netherlands in October 2024 for his role in the COVID-19 pandemic? No, that's not true: A Dutch judge only ruled that the case can be heard in the Netherlands. This is a civil lawsuit, as court records show, and, therefore, it doesn't include any criminal indictments.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on October 23, 2024. It said:
RFK Jr: 'Bill Gates has just been indicted--'
Crowd cheers RFK: 'He's been indicted in the Netherlands for lying to the public about the Covid vaccine.'
Crowe cheers again
RFK: 'And he's going to have to go to trial.' @RobertKennedyJr
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of the publication of this fact check:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Oct 25 13:41:00 2024 UTC)
The post included a fragment of the speech delivered by the former 2024 third-party presidential candidate Kennedy (archived here) at a Trump rally in Duluth, Georgia, on October 23, 2024. Kennedy said what the post attributed to him.
That description of the litigation involving Gates in the Netherlands, however, grossly misrepresented the nature of the proceedings.
Contrary to the claim, the case is not criminal but civil. By definition, that means there will be no indictment, a formal criminal charge.
Gates' representatives tried to remove him from the case by arguing that a lawsuit against an American citizen can't be heard in the Netherlands, but the judge disagreed, Netherlands public broadcaster Omrop Fryslan (archived here) reported on October 16, 2024. The court ruled that it has jurisdiction over the case because one plaintiff lives in the region covered by the court. Another Dutch public broadcaster, RTV Noord (archived here), reported the same.
The articles mentioned a specific location: the city of Leeuwarden in the northern Netherlands (archived here).
Lead Stories called the District Court of the Northern Netherlands in that city (archived here) and confirmed that it had had a hearing on the matter.
Though the names of the parties are redacted in the publicly available text of the judgment, a search of a Dutch court-records database returned a single document (archived here) that mentioned an American citizen. The court issued the document on October 16, 2024.
A screenshot of the document, automatically translated into English by Chrome, clearly shows that it's civil litigation:
(Source: Rechtspraak.nl screenshot taken on Fri Oct 25 18:37:48 2024 UTC)
The full text of the judgment, which ordered the person referred to as "a wealthy American" to cover legal expenses of 1,406 euros (roughly $1,520), said nothing about criminal prosecution, either.
What it did mention was that the plaintiffs base their claims on the Great Reset theory -- an old, unsubstantiated conspiracy whose variations have been debunked by Lead Stories numerous times over the years.
The Dutch newspaper Leeuwarder Courant (archived here) reported that, besides Gates, the list of defendants includes several Dutch officials such as former Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
According to this paper, the lawsuit was brought by a group of seven people, one of whom had already died. They claimed they suffered damages resulting from COVID-19 vaccines.
Dutch media previously reported (archived here) that the medical records for all the seven unnamed plaintiffs were produced by the same person who had previously declared himself a COVID-19 skeptic.
Leeuwarder Courant reported that the plaintiffs were represented by Arno van Kessel, an attorney with a long history of spreading misinformation about COVID-19 (archived here). He has engaged with anti-vaccine groups to the point that the Disciplinary Board ruled in 2022 that he "violated the code of conduct for the legal profession," as reported by the investigative division of another public broadcaster, KRO NCRV (archived here).
Gates was not reported to have made an in-person appearance at the Dutch court. Lead Stories contacted the law firm that represents him in the Netherlands but didn't receive an immediate response.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Gates can be found here. Our fact checks concerning claims about COVID-19 are here.
