Said O.’s lawyer (33) wants the court to acquit his client of the armed robbery of Uden YouTube star Nikkie de Jager and her boyfriend. The Rotterdam suspect was sentenced to nine years in prison last week, but according to counsel Dirk Timmermans, the evidence is too thin.
The suspicion against O. is mainly based on the fact that on the day of the robbery in Uden in August 2020, his phone partly followed the same route as that of a co-defendant. About 25 minutes after the robbery, O.’s phone beamed into a cell tower in nearby Valburg, which police say fits the timeline.
Timmermans called the evidence presented on Wednesday ‘completely insufficient to demonstrate the involvement of my client’. For example, DNA traces and fingerprints are missing in the evidence, says the lawyer. O. is also not identified on the basis of the camera images made of the robbers and, according to his counsel, O. does not comply with the description that the victims provided.
Criminal organization
The lawyer says he is surprised that the judiciary nevertheless considers O. an important member of a criminal organization, which in 2020 was engaged in burglaries and robberies of wealthy and well-known Dutch people, including René van der Gijp.
Nikkie de Jager was robbed on August 8, 2020. The makeup artist and her boyfriend were tied to chairs with duct tape, tie wraps and ropes. The robbers made off with valuable jewelry, keys and a Louis Vuitton bag.
The pleas of the lawyers of two other Rotterdam suspects of the armed robbery will follow on Thursday. These are Hamza T. and Eddie N, who were heard to demand prison sentences of ten and eight years. The court will rule on July 8.
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