Below you can see the Twitter report of our court reporter Saskia Belleman.
Eric Jeffrey T. stabbed a policeman several times in the face and neck on the Van Houtenlaan around 10 p.m. The officer was seriously injured. A policewoman was stabbed in the leg. A belt strap prevented her from being hit in the stomach. T. was on the street together with Justin de G. (22) from Winschoten, with whom he had a relationship for 2.5 years and whom he calls his wife and Emma. The officers wanted to check their IDs. T. has resided illegally in the Netherlands since September 2020.
According to T. he had started stabbing because De G. had no proof of identity with him. He was afraid that his partner would be arrested and had to go back to a mental health institution, he said at the court in Groningen on Thursday. His partner had been systematically abused and mistreated, said T. “This was organized by the health system, which is completely rotten, and defended by the government.” He calls his action “honorable.” He didn’t want to run away and betray Emma. “I want to die for her, kill for her,” he told the judge. “Give me freedom or give me death.”
“I was the one who stabbed the officer,” said T. about the attack on the policeman. According to him, ‘Emma’ was just a bystander. De G. will appear in court on Friday. T. and De G. fled to France after the stabbing, where they were arrested. T. was examined in the Pieter Baan Center.
The Public Prosecution Service assumes attempted manslaughter and attempted aggravated assault. The public prosecutor will announce the sentence against T. later in the day.