Twenty years jail and TBS demanded for murder of student in Leeuwarden
In the early morning of March 6, 2022, Mieke Oort was killed in a violent incident. Her friend Tom is badly injured in the incident and is barely rescued. The suspect is responsible for this and confesses that he stabbed them both several times in the chest and upper body with a knife. Ben, a roommate of Mieke, is injured by a knife stab that the suspect inflicts on him. Prior to that, he threw a Molotov cocktail against the window of the house. The prosecutor: "What the suspect has done should never have happened and is in no way justifiable". She demands a prison term of twenty years and TBS with compulsory treatment against the 27-year-old suspect from Leek.
The suspect was obsessive towards Mieke. At the beginning of October 2021, Mieke and the suspect get to know each other via Tinder. They meet and go on a date. The suspect wanted a relationship with her, while Mieke wanted to have a good time during her student days without a real permanent relationship with the suspect. These two principles did not fit together and led to stalking behavior in the suspect. The prosecutor: "Sending expensive gifts when she didn't ask for it, placing a tracker in her bicycle and following Mieke via the Amigos app are just a few examples of actions by the suspect prior to the tragic weekend of 6 March. Suspect is sorry, wants to turn back time, but that is impossible. What the suspect has done should never have happened and is in no way justifiable.”
The suspect also radically changed Tom's life. He cannot remember anything about the incident, but daily sees the scars that remind him of the incident and its impact. The life-saving actions of first responders in the home ensured that there was no double murder on the subpoena, but it was close. In any case, it is not the fault of the suspect that Tom survived the stabbing incident. The suspect hit Tom three times in the chest, the place with the most essential vital organs, the heart and the lungs.
The prosecutor: “What I gather from all the conversations and incidents prior to the weekend in question in early March is that during the relationship there were several moments of attraction and repulsion between the two. There was also uncertainty from Mieke about the relationship on the one hand. On the other hand, there is the problem, the suspect's autism, in which he does not know how to act and what is socially acceptable in social situations. He just needed that clarity. I think these two components have greatly reinforced each other.” The evening of the indictment, the hurt caused by the renewed rejection of Mieke, the presence of Tom and the last hope of the person concerned, which was shattered as a result, seem to have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
At the beginning of the night, the suspect already knew that Mieke and Tom were together when he drove away from Leeuwarden to Leek, as he had a video on his phone. He got angry at that moment. He drove back to Leek and grabbed the petrol canister he had bought earlier and made the Molotov cocktails. He took a hammer from the shed and a knife from the knife block. He already had the other knife in sight. He then drove back to Leeuwarden for more than half an hour. He had plenty of time to think about his plan and its consequences. In the more than ten minutes that he was at the house, he had time to think about his plan and also had time not to carry out his plan. “Considering everything, I come to the conclusion that the suspect had premeditation in killing Mieke and nearly killing Tom. The charges of murder and attempted murder can be declared legally and convincingly proven”.
The prosecutor: "At that moment he could still make choices and think, such as the conscious choice not to harm Ben and making the plan of first throwing a Molotov cocktail against the window to set off the fire alarm, and perhaps create chaos, climb up the drainpipe, smash the door window and then stab. I therefore come to the conclusion that the suspect is slightly less accountable.”
The rapporteurs' advice, in order to reduce the chance of future escalations of violence, is that the suspect receives treatment aimed at learning to attach securely, gaining more individuality and learning to behave differently in relationships with others. In addition, the suspect must learn how to recognize anger and frustrations, how to deal with them, the avoidance and emotional division must be broken, and he must learn to channel his anger appropriately. It is advised to impose such treatment on the suspect within the legal framework of the measure of the order of TBS with compulsory treatment.
The prosecutor: “The life of a young woman has been taken by the suspect. The relatives have to live on without Mieke. Studying and getting to know the background of part of her family was the reason for Mieke to go to the Netherlands. A place her parents thought was a safe place. It turned out not to be. Every parent's nightmare. The unimaginable suffering that the defendant inflicted on them is indescribable and impressively expressed by father, mother and sister in the right to speak. Taking a life is the worst fact in our Criminal Code.”
For murder, attempted murder, abuse and arson, the prosecutor demands a prison term of twenty years plus the TBS measure with compulsory treatment. Since there is a suspicion of murder and attempted murder, the prosecutor asks the court to include in the verdict that it concerns an unlimited TBS*.
* A TBS with compulsory treatment lasts a maximum of four years for minor crimes, but in the case of a violent crime such as murder, the judge can extend the measure indefinitely if the chance of relapse has decreased insufficiently. Tbs with compulsory treatment always ends conditionally. This means that the offender must also adhere to agreements with the probation service after the measure. There is no longer a maximum term for the conditional termination of TBS. This means that judges can continue to extend supervision if the risk of relapse has decreased sufficiently. This can be done annually or every 2 years. The TBS can appeal against any extension. (Source: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/tbs-en-overige-forensische-zorg/tbs/soorten-tbs
