A 26-year-old man from Assen has been sentenced to a suspended prison sentence of one month and sixty hours of community service for attacking the owner of cafeteria Julio Menotti in Assen with a knife. The man is also given a two-year restraining order and must pay the entrepreneur compensation.
That is a slightly higher sentence than the demand of the Public Prosecution Service, which demanded a suspended prison sentence of 20 days.
On October 30, 2025, the man got into an argument with a father who was shopping in Marktstraat with his two young children because he was cycling through the pedestrian area. The man from Assen is said to have scared the socks off of a child. The snack bar owner came towards the commotion and wanted to stop the argument by sending the suspect away.
The man from Assen took his bicycle, turned around and rode towards the snack bar owner. He was shocked and kicked the 26-year-old man. The man then left.
That could have been the whole incident, but a while later the perpetrator came back. This time with a knife. The owner of the cafeteria, who was drinking coffee outside, ran into his business to get a piece of wood to defend himself with.
The owner of the cafeteria shouted several times for the man to leave. He didn’t listen to that and became aggressive. The entrepreneur ran away, but slipped a little further away.
The 26-year-old man jumped at him and took a swing with the knife. He missed the entrepreneur, who kicked the man away, and ran away. According to the judge, all this can be seen on camera images of both incidents in the city center of Assen.
The incident has had a huge impact on the cafeteria owner. During the hearing he says that his life has changed in one fell swoop. “The world no longer feels safe to me. During the day I am very tense and alert, suspicious. I no longer feel comfortable anywhere, not even in my own business and in my own home.”
He wants compensation from the 26-year-old man from Assen, but even more important is a restraining order. That is already in place, imposed by the mayor, but it will expire after the lawsuit. The entrepreneur is afraid that the man will return later.
The 26-year-old man shows no remorse during the hearing and denies that he had a knife, despite the fact that there are many camera images of both incidents. The man from Assen says that he was attacked out of nowhere. First by the father in the Marktstraat, then by a group of others. They would have come at him ‘with big knives’.
During the hearing, the born Afghan suddenly tells through his interpreter that the snack bar owner stabbed him with a knife. He returned after the first incident because he had lost his key after the first skirmish and wanted to look for it. Along the way he found a ‘fake knife made of wood’. He took that with him to be able to defend himself against the crowds.
The perpetrator’s lawyer paints the picture that after the first incident the 26-year-old man was pulled off the bicycle by several men, beaten and grabbed by the throat. “That can also be seen on camera images,” says the lawyer.
About the incident with the snack bar owner, she says that it was not the perpetrator, but the snack bar owner, who approached him with a weapon. The man from Assen simply wanted to go home and his way was blocked by the entrepreneur, says the lawyer. He lives in an assisted living location and has low intelligence.
According to his lawyer, the man saw no other option than to scare the entrepreneur. The lawyer argues that the man acted out of psychological force majeure, due to trauma he suffered in Afghanistan and during his flight to the Netherlands about ten years ago. Therefore, according to the lawyer, the threat cannot be attributed to him.
According to the public prosecutor, his story about the crowd with knives cannot be seen on camera images. She is surprised by his statement that the entrepreneur would have stabbed him.
The man has been convicted twice before for committing violence. According to the court, this factors into the amount of the sentence.
