For the first time since the (attempted) attacks on Polish supermarkets, perpetrators have been convicted. Amir S. (20) has to serve 2.5 years, Youssef K. (18) has to spend 16 months in juvenile detention, of which half a year is suspended. That is what the court of Haarlem decided today. Whether the conviction will prevent any future attacks on Polish supermarkets is open to question.
The two men confessed two weeks ago in court last summer on June 28 to have laid down a mine at the Polish supermarket in Beverwijk. They were also recognizable on camera images from the supermarket.
They said they received an order through a contact person put down the landmine ‘as intimidation’† They would not have known that the mine, cable and battery in the bag they received from him were actually life-threatening. The mine and/or cable would have been fake, they thought.
no know
S. said, “I knew the thing was supposed to be a bomb, but I don’t know any of those things. I just had to put it down, pour gasoline over the door, unroll the wire, put the battery next to it, leave and call the police.”
In addition, he and K. said they were unaware of the two previous attacks on the same supermarket, or three other explosions at Polish supermarkets in the country not long before. And the job was an easy way for both of them to quickly earn around 250 euros.
This raises the question of how easy it is for the unknown client(s) to recruit new, other impressionable and/or vulnerable errand boys in the future for similar attacks or attempts to do so.
In any case, the principals or creators of the attacks do not seem to have been caught yet. According to the Public Prosecution Service, one suspect would have had a ‘coordinating role’.
Mentally vulnerable
There seems to be a pattern among the suspects of the attacks at Polish supermarkets: two other suspects surrounding explosions at Polish supermarkets also do not want to reveal their client, and were called ‘mentally frail’.
For example, another suspect, Hyron A. (20), may be tried as a minor, although he confessed to having planted three bombs of the five that did go off.
In 2020 and 2021 there were explosions at Polish supermarkets in Beverwijk (two), Aalsmeer and Tilburg and Heeswijk-Dinther in North Brabant. There were also other incidents in Beverwijk, Rotterdam, Panningen and Lelystad.
Supermarket closed
After the discovery of the landmine in June, Mayor Martijn Smit thought it was enough: the shock was certainly good after the earlier ‘successful’ explosions in Beverwijk and he closed the supermarket† It has not opened since then.
Shortly afterwards, however, it hit again in Beverwijk: a few days later, on July 3, found another explosive. This time at another building on the Breestraat. There had also previously been a Polish supermarket. Although the sign was still there, that supermarket had been gone for a while.
‘Very violent assignment’
Coincidence or not, since then there have been no more incidents around Polish (former) supermarkets in Beverwijk. The number of incidents has also decreased in the rest of the country: only on 23 August a bomb went off at a Polish supermarket in Lelystad, causing a door to pop out of the rebates.
The court said today that it found the statements of S. and K. about their actions on June 28 implausible. The judges strongly accuse the suspects that they took on this ‘very violent assignment’ purely to earn some money and thus took the risk of causing enormous damage.
S. gets 2.5 years unconditional prison sentence. He was serving two suspended prison sentences. This adds another 2 months of humming. K. is given juvenile detention and probation under conditions, such as compulsory treatment for his psychological problems, compulsory study and sheltered housing.
All conditions for ignition
If Amir S. and Youssef K. had succeeded in setting off the explosive on June 28, they would probably have paid for their action with their lives and the havoc in and around the supermarket would have been enormous.
In order for the bomb to go off, all the conditions for a successful ignition were present and only one simple action was needed: the battery should have been attached to the mine via the cable, an expert from the NFI explained two weeks ago. In addition, the suspects had placed two jerry cans with petrol next to it.
The explosives expert said in court that such a mine would require 200 meters away to be completely safe. Anyone standing within a radius of 100 meters, without intervening objects, will be injured. Anyone standing 50 meters or less is likely to die. The suspects’ cable was 20 meters long.
Amir S. said he only fully realized later how dangerous his action was for himself. “I feel screwed, honestly,” he said in court.