“Suddenly sat next to a woman rapist”, how AZ rioter was shocked by prison

That Thursday, May 18, things go completely wrong around the end of AZ’s match against West Ham United. A large group of supporters from the fanatical Alkmaar home section storms the stands with Englishmen.

The first six men to appear in court today have been convicted of their part in the riots and therefore open violence. One makes kicking movements, the other hands out striking taps. Three escaped a prison sentence, partly due to mistakes made by the police.

Their picture became namely shown in Opsporing Requested while they had reported to the police station before the deadline. The judge sees it as an invasion of their privacy, for some with negative ones consequences for the family.

Alkmaarder AL is then seventh. A few days after the ‘unprecedented explosion of violence’, the Public Prosecution Service sees it, the 31-year-old father is arrested. He’s been stuck ever since. For seventeen days.

With the melancholy in his voice, he says in court: “Instead of taking care of my family and working at home, I was in prison doing labor, rolling mats with a man who tied his wife to a chair, strangled and raped.”

Love began in De Hout

He came to AZ as a small boy. ‘Love began in De Hout’, his Alkmaar lawyer Vito Shukrula quotes the well-known club song today. “He fell in love with AZ, in addition to his wife,” said the counsel.

L. has therefore been in the fanatical profession in the stadium for years. “He talks to boys there a lot and also tries to keep them in line, but that went wrong. Now he is involved himself.”

During the heated semi-final on Ascension Day, the Alkmaarder says he tries to warn stewards in the stadium when the unrest starts that ‘it is getting out of hand’.

“Then the situation arises with the fence”, he describes the breaking through by a group of about 150 men. “I didn’t touch it, but I did go to the stands. There is a struggle with others, I lash out, miss someone, fall and decide to go home.”

At the time of the escalation, camera images show that the Alkmaarder is wearing black clothing, a hood and gloves. Both the prosecutor and the judge wonder why, if there was no intention to riot at all?

“The hood is group behavior, I always have the gloves in my pocket because I lose things three times a year. I didn’t wear a balaclava like others.”

L. shows remorse. “I am ashamed of it, also towards the club. I spent days in a cell and saw children crying on TV. That could never have been the intention and I blame myself.”

The judge finds it proven that he hit a supporter on the head, but also rules that L. has served his time in jail. So for now he only gets eighty hours of community service.

Not at stadium

He wants to share with others what the Alkmaarder has seen and experienced after his arrest in prison. “That experience, with those kinds of figures. I can tell: this is what awaits you. I would rather have been spared.”

He will not be able to protect those ‘other boys’ from making mistakes from the stands of his beloved club for the time being: all rioters convicted today are not allowed to show themselves in or around the AZ stadium for one year. If they do, most of them still face a prison sentence.