The police chief who has spent the past year in charge of security for an international conference on nuclear terrorism in The Hague has been removed from the job for failing security clearance, the NRC reports.

Police commissioner Ton Driessen was last year put in charge of the Nuclear Security Summit which will take place in The Hague next May. The summit is being attended by some 60 government leaders, including US president Barrak Obama, Russian president Vladimir Putin and UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

No details have been formally given about the reasons why Driessen, the former head of the national police force, failed the security service check.

Justice minister Ivo Opstelten said the situation is ‘painful’. ‘He is a good man with good qualities,’ Optstelten said.

Unions

Police unions have called for an inquiry into Driessen’s appointment. ‘How can you carry out an integrity check 18 months after the appointment,’ said ACP chairman Gerrit van de Kamp. ‘The whole world is looking at the Netherlands. This is bad for the image of police integrity.’

Driessen’s judgement was called into question in 2011 while he worked at Europol. He was removed from his job as number two at the bureau after claims he had tried to help a Dutch friend get a job there. According to the NRC, Driessen had not been open enough about that incident.

Driessen has always denied the charge.