Almost 28 years after the Pettense camping murder, the Public Prosecution Service has asked for acquittal for the convicted Frank V. (59). The German was sentenced on appeal in 1995 to five years in prison after a confession.
In July 1994, 41-year-old Peter Teschke from Germany was stabbed to death at the Corfwater campsite in Petten. Although someone else was initially in the picture as a suspect, the police soon turned their attention to V. after he told about a dream in which he stabbed this man – his step-father-in-law.
After some interrogations, he confessed, but later retracted these confessions. Initially, the judge acquitted him. On appeal, the court in Amsterdam convicted him for the murder. Last year, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the case still had to go at the Court of Appeal in The Hague.
An expert concluded that V.’s confessions were probably false and had been made as a result of the lengthy police interrogations. It was also the only evidence for the police, because the murder weapon was never found.
Reliability
“The reliability of the confessional statements has been affected to such an extent that they cannot simply be used for evidence,” said the attorney general of the Public Prosecution Service (OM). “A conviction can no longer be based solely on that.”
But despite the call for acquittal, according to the Public Prosecution Service, there is no miscarriage of justice. “With the file in hand, you could view the case differently, as was also apparent from the initial acquittal at the court and the conviction at the court.”
Tunnel vision
The police cannot be blamed for tunnel vision either, according to the Public Prosecution Service AP† “We acted as was customary at the time. V. came with the special dream and confessional statement, which the police thought was specific perpetrator information. V. did not seem an illogical perpetrator. Times have really changed in that regard.”