Who is responsible for blowing up a car on the Marxhemstraat in Rucphen on November 3, 2021? Justice thinks that 21-year-old Jurrit de B. from Roosendaal has to do with that huge explosion and demanded two years in prison for the court in Breda on Friday afternoon. Plus six months probation if he goes wrong again.
But whether Jurrit is responsible for it or not, the fact remains that the owner of the blown-up car is still suffering from it. Her lawyer told the court that she is still stressed and sleeps badly. She has also had therapy and is still on medication.
The blow was therefore not sickening on that evening around half past ten. The force of the explosion of a chemical mixture was so enormous that the Peugeot was completely bulging, the doors were hanging out and there was no glass in the windows. Two cars, which were parked next to it, were also completely destroyed. A neighbor thought it was thunder and hail, but glass came down.
A camera in the street captured the explosion:
Jurrit denied in all tones that he had anything to do with the bomb. The public prosecutor had to admit that Jurrit is not the bomber in any case. He does not at all fit the profile of the man who ran away quickly after the impact. But the officer does think that Jurrit was the driver of the Volkswagen Transporter that was nearby at the time of the explosion.
Coincidence does not exist, the officer believed. According to him, there are many indications that Jurrit is involved in the explosion:
- The Transporter that was nearby was recognized as the bus belonging to Jurrit and his scooter company.
- His phone rang three times that evening in Rucphen, near Marxhemstraat, also around the time of the explosion.
- A man running from the explosion jumped into the Volkswagen Transporter.
- Jurrit had only turned off the GPS tracker in his bus that day.
- Jurrit’s girlfriend at the time stated that he went to Rucphen that evening.
- Jurrit knows the exes of the owner of the car, who have both been convicted of stalking this woman.
- According to a witness, Jurrit would receive stolen scooters from one of the exes and knock them over.
Jurrit was of course asked where he was then. But he couldn’t remember exactly what he had done that evening in November 2021 and only gave a general statement. “It may well be that I have been around. But, I don’t remember. I drive in that area so often.”
The judge thought it was remarkable that he did not look into this anymore, although he had already been in jail for three months for a serious offense. Jurrit, for example, as a scooter mechanic, more often picked up customers with a breakdown. “You could have checked whether there was an invoice on that day or searched for apps,” the judge told him.
‘Acquittal’
Jurrit’s lawyer wiped the floor with the thousand-page file of the judiciary. According to him, there is no evidence that Jurrit has anything to do with the explosion. The bus may well belong to someone else, because there are more such white Transporters, he thought. And maybe the running man wasn’t the one who planted the bomb at all, but someone who was scared, he argued. The lawyer therefore asked for an acquittal.
On August 4, the court will make clear how it thinks about this case.
Bureau Brabant also paid attention to this case: