Rob Sengers was forty years old when a scooter rider shot him dead in Esbeek. That happened almost twenty years ago. Police and prosecutors tracked down the possible shooter (62). On Tuesday he appeared in court in Breda. The public prosecutor demanded a life sentence for the suspected shooter.
Sengers was shot dead in a parking lot at a restaurant in Esbeek on September 8, 2004. The perpetrator was an unknown person on a scooter and wearing a helmet. The shooter left no traces, only eight bullet casings, but the police found nothing.
The scooter turned up two days later, in the bushes nearby. There were gunpowder traces and DNA on the handles. But at that time the police could not yet get a useful lead out of it.
Because Sengers was in the drug world, this murder was seen as a settlement from the start.
Killer
Over the years, a certain Jan S. came into the picture, born in Amersfoort in 1961. A man with a hefty criminal record with 25 convictions, including a series of bank robberies in Germany. And also a murder. The one on Mohamed Yaacoubi. This Breda drug criminal was shot dead at the Ekkerswijer fish pond near Son in 2002. Jan S. received an 18-year prison sentence for that.
Evidence
The police had long suspected that S. was up to more. This was due to incriminating statements made by his ex-girlfriend to the police. Jan ‘proudly’ told her about another murder. “Somewhere at a restaurant in a wooded area where a scooter was used,” the girlfriend recalled his story.
Another incriminating statement emerged from an anonymous witness who spoke extensively about Jan S. and the murder in Son. And that it had to do with the theft of chemicals for drug production. Mohamed Yaacoubi and Rob Sengers allegedly committed the theft and had to pay for it.
Messed up
The anonymous person – an officially threatened witness since 2011 – told the police that Sengers and Yaacoubi were associates. S. is said to have botched the murder of Yaacoubi and that is why Sengers had to die. 50,000 euros were reportedly paid for the job.
Despite the pieces of the puzzle that S. was behind it, there was still insufficient evidence to arrest him. In 2017, the police picked up the cold case. A breakthrough followed in 2019. Thanks to improved DNA technology, specialists were able to isolate usable DNA from the handles of the scooter. For the first time, the National Forensic Institute was able to prove that it belonged to Jan S. He was arrested in his cell in early December 2018.
Shut up
The public prosecutor called him the executor in court on Tuesday. “Apparently he doesn’t care about human life.”
The suspect barely responded to the accusations. He denies but remains silent. “I don’t want to say anything at all,” he stated at the start of his trial.
The trial is followed by the victim’s son and daughter and Rob’s parents, both now in their eighties. Their lawyer read a statement. “Rob, father of two children, was shot dead in cold blood, animalistic. And for what? For a few damn cents. It still makes us sad. You had a choice at the time. In our eyes you are the worst of all.” The latter was directed at S. He did not respond.
It has never been determined who was responsible for the murder. Several names were mentioned and people were interviewed, but there was no evidence against anyone.
Jan S’s lawyers are currently arguing a plea. They believe that the witness statements are unreliable and unusable.