Demanded two life terms for suspects of mistaken murder in Amsterdam community center and two more liquidations

It was an unimaginable act. In January 2018, two masked men walked into a playground building in the Wittenburg district of Amsterdam, where young children and teenagers were present at the time. With a machine gun they shot and killed the innocent intern Mohamed Bouchikhi (17), who they mistook for someone else. They also seriously injured two other people present. The murder of Bouchikhi caused a wave of dismay in Amsterdam and the rest of the country.

More than five years later, the alleged perpetrators are finally brought to justice. This Tuesday, Randall D. (41) and Emylio G. (30) both heard life sentences. That maximum sentence is inevitable, according to the Public Prosecution Service, due to the extremely violent, shocking nature of the murder of Bouchikhi – and two other liquidations from 2015 for which D. and G. are on trial in this process. According to the prosecutors, there are “actually no words for how serious” the three murders are.

Friends D. and G. both have a long history in crime. In 2011, they committed a violent robbery of a jeweler in Amsterdam, for which they had to go to prison for several years. Emylio G. is currently serving another prison sentence of more than fourteen years for two violent crimes. Randall D., according to the Public Prosecution Service “a violent professional criminal”, was arrested in Curaçao in 2021.

Right to remain silent

How did G. and D. commit their heinous act in the playground building? Most likely they were targeting Gianni L., a boy from the neighborhood who was involved in a shooting in the neighborhood a few months earlier. Gianni was also at the community center at the time of the murder. He was hit in the neck and chest but miraculously managed to get away. When D. and G. went looking for him in the building, they probably mistook intern Bouchikhi for him. According to the OM, Emylio G. fired the fatal shot – in the back.

There is much evidence that seems to support their guilt. During the hearing, tapped conversations were played and video images were shown. The Public Prosecution Service also collected telephone data and images from traffic cameras. Three anonymous witnesses made incriminating statements against D. and G.

Yet during the trial, not much has become clear about the actual circumstances of the mistaken murder – and about the motivation of the two suspects. If Gianni was indeed the target, why were D. and G. after him? If it was a murder-for-hire, as the Justice Department suspects, on whose orders were they acting? Was there a connection with other liquidations in the Amsterdam drug scene?

The two suspects do not want to say anything about it: in the courtroom, where they keep their coats on, they invoke their right to remain silent. They also said nothing during their police interrogation, according to the OM.

Also read this report: Wittenburg: the fear, the silence and the violence

Idealistic and beloved

The murder of Bouchikhi, an intelligent, idealistic boy who was loved by the neighborhood, has been a devastating blow to his family. That became clear last week, when a brother and sister gave an emotional story in court.

The attack also led to sadness, anger and despair among local residents. The playground building is located in Wittenburg, a neighborhood on the east side of Amsterdam’s city center with a long history of unrest and youth crime. Mohamed Bouchikhi was the sixth local resident to be murdered in five years. The other victims were – except for one, also a mistaken murder – all boys who were in the criminal circuit, or close to it. For the children in the playground building, almost all of them from the neighbourhood, the violent murder was a more than traumatic experience. The youngest person present was ten years old, according to the Public Prosecution Service.

Two other murders

Randall D. and Emylio G. are also on trial for two other murders, which helps explain why it took so long for the trial to start. The OM considers G. guilty of the murder of Siegmar Flaneur (24), a talented baseball player who was also active in the criminal circuit. In February 2015, he was lured out of his house in Amsterdam Zuidoost at night and liquidated on the street – according to Justice by G.

According to the OM, D. was involved in the murder of Lucas Boom (43), an Amsterdam criminal, who was shot dead with automatic weapons in June 2015 in Zaandam by four masked men. The liquidation took place in broad daylight, in the street where Boom lived, next to a schoolyard where dozens of children were playing outside at the time.

According to the OM, the murders of Bouchikhi, Flaneur and Boom had “all the characteristics of a cold-blooded, commercially planned and executed liquidation”, in which the suspects acted “without conscience”. Although ‘caution and restraint’ is required when imposing life sentences, the Public Prosecution Service does not consider another punishment appropriate because of ‘protection of society’. There is also a “sky-high risk of recidivism”. For example, G. would still maintain contacts in the criminal circuit from the cell – and even have ordered a new liquidation.

Read also this report about the Amsterdam ‘silent district’ Wittenburg, where Mohamed Bouchikhi was murdered