Emotions ran high today during a preparatory hearing in the case surrounding the murder of Hoofddorp tattoo artist Steve Mahakena. His friend and boss Ismaël El B. is detained as a suspect in the case, but has been saying for months that the Public Prosecution Service has blinders on.
Today El B. also took the opportunity to respond to the accusations made by the Public Prosecution Service. The man has now been in pre-trial detention for eight months, but he said he wanted to save the life of his good friend Steve.
El B. thinks he knows who did target Steve, but has the feeling that the police and the Public Prosecution Service are not properly investigating alternative scenarios. “Everything I have said so far has fallen on deaf ears. I keep shouting,” he said desperately in the Haarlem court this morning.
Previously convicted
The suspect is afraid that the court will be influenced too much by things he has done in the past in the decision it has to make regarding El B.’s pre-trial detention. He was named El B. in 2013 by the court in Haarlem sentenced to 7 years in prison for drug trafficking, human trafficking, assault and participation in a criminal organization.
“Just look carefully at the file and forget that there is a Moroccan boy with a past,” he urges the court.
The case in brief
The Hoofddorp tattoo artist Steve Mahakena was found seriously injured in the apartment of his good friend and boss Ismaël El B. on March 7 last year. El B. is the one who called the emergency services. Nevertheless, the Public Prosecution Service believes that he fatally assaulted Steve the night before and that morning.
The suspect himself says that Steve rang his doorbell seriously injured, after which he cared for his friend in need for a night. When his condition deteriorated the next morning, El B. called 112. The defense also comes up with an alternative scenario. They think Steve was abused by a pedo hunter.
According to the suspect’s lawyer, Jan-Hein Kuijpers, new pathological research shows that his client is telling the truth. This would show that Steve lost very little blood that evening. It would undermine one of the most important pieces of evidence presented by the Public Prosecution Service.
Blood splatter
“The fact that only blood spatters were found in the home shows that the violence must have been used inside the home, and that means that a scenario with violence outside is not an issue,” the officer reiterated today. According to Kuijpers, it is quite possible that Steve was abused outside, but only left blood in the house. “Help was provided there and there was a lot of moving, coughing, coughing, crying and shouting.”
The lawyer therefore does not find it strange that the blood spatter in the house went up to the ceiling. According to the Public Prosecution Service, this can only be the result of abuse in the home.
“We shouted at each other hundreds of times and called each other names, but Steve was my favorite”
According to the Public Prosecution Service, research shows that El B. ultimately strangled his friend. Kuijpers thinks that’s a strange story. “The suggestion that Steve was strangled is not valid at all, because Steve was still alive when emergency services arrived on the scene.”
According to him, new research shows that Steve died from injuries he previously sustained as a result of violence. They are said to have caused swelling in his head that ultimately made him unable to breathe.
Pedo hunter
According to the defense, the investigation should focus more on Steve’s alleged double life. Police reportedly found evidence of sexual contact with underage boys on his phone. According to El B., an acquaintance of the two, who is also a pedo hunter, should be held in his place.
“His phone radiated that evening near Hoofddorp,” Kuijpers explains. “And there is also a telephone that has disappeared. In addition, the boy gave three different statements about that evening, all of which turned out to be incorrect.”
‘Everything broken’
El B. admits that he and Steve had an argument on the evening of March 6, but according to him that is not a motive for the murder. Arguing was also not unusual in the close friendship the two had. “We shouted at each other hundreds of times and called each other names, but Steve was my favorite.”
The tattoo parlor owner hopes that the court will decide tomorrow that he can await the substantive hearing of the case in freedom. “This has to stop now. My business (tattoo shops) is being destroyed. Soon I will have to go to the food bank… if there is an eventual acquittal, everything will already be destroyed.”