“Help me !!!! On Saturday morning, July 5, Driekus K. will post a cheerful photo of his two children and ex-partner (“my wife”) on Facebook. In the accompanying text – one long sentence of nearly 900 words – he calls on the Facebook community to find his children.
He has not seen the children for weeks because the woman “once again” went to a stay of my body, and he writes, “on false accusations” has been locked up in prison. This in the hope that he would be stuck for years so that she could continue with a new friend. Eindhovenaar K. leaves his mobile number for instructions about the residence of his daughter (6) and son (7) and writes “I love my children more like my life”. He closes the message with “Mvg Driekus”.
Ten days later, in Gouda, Driekus K. thinks his children and their mother. And before their eyes he shoots her death. Then the 53-year-old K. flees. A manhunt by the police leads that Tuesday to the Scheveningen dunes where K. tries to rob himself of life. Shortly after 20 hours he becomes by the police Seriously injured in the dunes.
About every two weeks a woman is killed in the Netherlands by a (former) partner, according to it The femicide monitor from Leiden University. Of the 448 women killed from 2014 to 2024, 60 percent died by femicide.
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The murder of the 39-year-old woman fits in a pattern. However, the murder case is an extra eye because of the history. The woman still reported K. in June for abuse and firearm possession. K. was then detained for more than fourteen days, but was released by the court. That release is extra painful because K. turns out to be a recidivist.
We now expect a huge amount of a system without knowing how that should be set up
The Eindhovenaar was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2009 for an attempted murder of his ex-partner in Boxtel. Statements of the court East Brabant and the court Den Bosch learn that K. blackmailed her with sex movies to prevent her from leaving him. When she ended the relationship in the autumn of 2008, K. couldn’t hurt that. A few weeks later he waited for her at her flat. When she arrived there he first shot her brother in his leg and then the woman in the chin, neck, chest and hand while he called “you must die, you have to die.”
The woman, who reported death threats by K. four days before the murder attack, barely survived the shooting. She is, as the ruling of the Oost-Brabant District Court, “physically signed” by the murder attempt of K.-which is described by the court as “cool and calculating”.
Firearms
Recently Driekus K. was again twice in front of the same court. His ex-murdered ex later reported in Gouda at the beginning of June against him for abuse and firearm possession, a spokesperson for the Oost-Brabant spokesperson confirms.
K. was then arrested and secured. After a few days, the examining magistrate extended his detention for fourteen days due to firearm possession-there was insufficient evidence for mistreatment.
After that, the council chamber had to consider whether K.’s preliminary detention would be extended by a maximum of ninety days. Although the Public Prosecution Service cannot confirm it because of the private nature of the hearing, it is likely that K.’s earlier murder attempt was also mentioned.
We are now talking a lot about it at the court. How terrible this is and that it went like this
However, the three-headed council chamber of the Oost-Brabant court no longer held. Persrechter Annelien Palmboom calls it “horrible” what happened afterwards. “We are talking a lot about it now. How terrible this is and that it went like this.”
Palmboom was not involved in the decision to release K.. She explains that the legal basic principle is that a suspect awaits the trial in freedom. This applies all the more to suspects of offenses who are usually punished relatively low. The starting point for prohibited firearms ownership is a prison sentence of four months.
Preliminary detention can only be extended if sufficiently plausible, the suspect has committed the offense and there is also serious legal grounds such as flight hazard or a society shocked by the offense. Also recurrent risk, as manifested at K. Tuesday, also serves as legal grounds.
Femicide monitor
Marieke Liem, professor of Safety and Interventions at Leiden University, does not want to comment without the knowledge of the entire file about what could have been otherwise at the case. Liem is behind the recently started femicide monitor with which data is collected on the circumstances of partner murder. For example, suicide by the perpetrator takes place in 17 percent of the cases.
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Liem sees that in recent years the awareness about femicide has increased considerably. But at the same time there is a “huge fragmented landscape” with countless care providers, women’s organizations, government agencies and parties from the criminal justice chain all of which play a role in tackling femicide. With research into individual partner gates, she hopes in the coming years “gaining a better view of that landscape with the hope that something can then be said about successful and missed interventions at femicide.”
The professor notices that the femicide issues are sometimes quickly pointed out with the finger, while the knowledge about where it goes wrong. Liem: “We now expect a lot from a system without knowing how that should be set up.”
You can talk about suicide anonymous and free on 0800-0113, the national helpline of 113 suicide prevention, or via chat op www.113.nl.