The judge’s ruling is followed by reporter Lieke Jongbloed, follow her live report at the bottom of this message:
Barendregt’s body was found on May 23 last year in Scheveningen. She had been stabbed with a knife and her body had been set on fire. A motive has remained unclear. It seems that the player at the Haagsche Rugby Club (HRC) was a random victim. Barendregt cycled home from a party at night, T. was apparently driving around aimlessly with the scooter when they passed each other. T. overtook Barendregt, waited in a side street and then followed her.
To remind
Suspect T. says he can’t remember anything about the murder. “I can’t imagine doing it. But I see the evidence and then there’s a very good chance that I did it,” T. said earlier this month during the trial of the case in court. He repeated several times how terrible he felt for the relatives “that I appear to be responsible for that” and had to cry a lot. That got him reprimanded. The president of the court told T. that there are other people in the room “who have much more reason to cry.”
Barendregt’s mother read a poignant victim statement during the session. She talked about her daughter Renée’s new job: she was going to work for the fire brigade. The day before her tragic end, Renée was hired by the fire brigade in The Hague. It is also in that context so terribly painful that she was found burning by her future colleagues.”