‘ARREST WARRANT BASED ON BOGUS WIKIPEDIA ENTRY’
FORMER Eggheads star CJ de Mooi has claimed the arrest warrant issued against him over an alleged killing appears to have been based on a bogus Wikipedia entry.
In an online video, the professional quizzer from Caldicot, near Newport, hit out at the Dutch authorities for a “complete cock-up” after they allegedly made a string of factual errors when they published a list of accusations.
He accused them and the press of misquoting him, as well as getting his name and date of birth wrong.
Prosecutors failed in an attempt to extradite him to the Netherlands on a European Arrest Warrant earlier this year over a claim in his book that he punched an armed man and threw him into an Amsterdam canal in 1988.
The ex-BBC quiz show panellist also confirmed he was going to be suing the Dutch authorities.
He said: “This warrant seems to have been issued because of what I said and wrote in my autobiography – they claim in my autobiography I wrote that I killed a man, I left him for dead, I knocked him unconscious.
“I didn’t. Nowhere in my book does it say that. If you please just read the book, all it says is a guy came up behind me with a knife and tried to mug me and the words in the autobiography are: ‘I half-punched, half-pushed him into a canal and walked away’, that is all it says.
“This warrant and a lot of the press and a lot of the police investigation seems to have been because of what somebody else wrote about me on Wikipedia – literally.
“The warrant and the press coverage states my real name as Joseph Connagh, it has never been that in my life, it states my date of birth as November 6, it isn’t. It states a lot of personal information about me that is completely wrong – somebody wrote this about me on Wikipedia and this warrant has just picked it up and said: ‘Oh, this must be true, we will go after him.’”
He added: “I can’t say too much because I’m taking my own legal action, obviously I’m suing.”
The Dutch prosecutors’ office was unavailable for comment when contacted.
During the eight-minute YouTube video, de Mooi reflects on his “horrible” year, which he said began with a discontinued accusation of sexual assault, the loss of his role on the BBC show and 11 months without earning money.