The court must watch the video in which a 17-year-old boy laughs at the low sentence for stabbing a 20-year-old man to death in Vlissingen. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) thinks so. The boy recorded the video in youth prison Den Hey-Acker in Breda when he returned from the trial. The Public Prosecution Service has asked the court in Middelburg to review the video.
The video with the 17-year-old suspect from Middelburg has been circulating on social media since Monday. He can be seen and heard on the images, while someone else is talking to him.
Laughing, the young detainee tells in street language that the judiciary has demanded ‘only’ a year and a half in prison and youth TBS against him. During the trial, he claimed that he regretted his act.
The OM wants the court to take the video into account when assessing the fatal stabbing. According to the Public Prosecution Service, the images give a different picture of the attitude of the suspect.
‘Terrible for relatives’
A spokesperson for the National Judicial Youth Institution, which includes Den Hey-Acker, said earlier this week that the Ministry of Justice is upset with the video. “We understand that it must be terrible for the next of kin,” a written statement said.
That is why ‘everything is done’ to keep prohibited items, such as telephones and drugs, out of prison, it added. There are specialist teams for this, which can detect telephones with sniffer dogs, for example.
The spokesperson also indicates that ‘visitors and young people are always checked upon entry for possession of telephones and drugs, for example’. Action is also taken if young people have a mobile phone.
That is why an investigation was conducted in Den Hey-Acker on Tuesday morning. A mobile phone was found in a room of ‘a young person’. It is still being investigated who owns the telephone, what is on the device and how the telephone could have entered.
‘Incredibly disrespectful’
The relatives reacted shocked on the video. They are assisted by Niels Dekker of the organization ‘On behalf of the family’. He told Omroep Zeeland: “After a long day at the court, they were exhausted, affected and affected. The video is incredibly disrespectful and cruel.”
“First they lost their son. Then they were slapped in the face because the Public Prosecution Service does not want to try the suspect according to adult criminal law. Then they get an extra blow from the suspect who shouts triumphantly from prison how easily he can get rid of it .”