Gino from Sprundel is still painfully reminded every day of his kidnapping in 2015. During the trial of the case, he recently said: “I am still being disadvantaged every day by what happened then. People who don’t want to deal with you, bad sleeping, sweating.” On Monday, the court in Breda will rule in a case against the three men who, according to the police and judiciary, were the perpetrators.
The kidnapping was between Christmas and New Year’s Eve in 2015. Armed and masked men took Gino and his cousin Rien from Schoondijke in Zeeland from a garage in Breda. They were locked in a trailer for about four days. It was parked in a remote warehouse in Ulicoten.
The three suspects deny everything. One of them says that he has been in the shed, but that he knew nothing about a kidnapping. There were fireworks there for customers.
Twelve suspects
The trial took nearly seven years to complete. The presiding judge was also surprised by this. “It intrigues me immensely why it took so long for the case to be heard,” she said during the trial last month. The prosecutor could explain that. “There were still arrests in December 2016.”
During the investigation, partly due to DNA, twelve suspects came into the picture. But there was not enough evidence against all those people. Three remained.
Riddles remain
The file was completed in May 2018. The investigation then became “dormant,” the officer said. There was a pre-trial hearing in September 2019, followed by two more witness interviews. “And then corona came through.” Subsequently, suspect Alex B. changed lawyers and a new one had to come in who had to read up, which also took time.
The background to the case has never been made clear. The police heard stories of ransoms of 70,000 or 90,000 euros being paid, but no evidence of this has ever been found. Several people involved denied that payment was made. It also remains unclear how it is possible that the victims escaped.
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