A 42-year-old man has been sentenced to thirty months in prison for causing an explosion in his then home in Meppel. Fifteen months of this are conditional.
The explosion in the night hours of last year on October 19 caused a lot of unrest and, above all, havoc. The rear facade of his house had been blown away, the front facade was bulging. Surrounding homes were severely damaged by the explosion and the resulting fire. The residents were taken care of elsewhere. Several homes were uninhabitable.
The former Meppeler took off. He was later arrested in Heerenveen. He had some burns on his arms and his eyebrows were singed. He had spent that night preparing cannabis oil. He himself was under the influence of hard drugs at the time. At one point he knocked over a bowl of oil.
Due to poor ventilation, propane and butane gases had accumulated in the room during this process. The gases caught fire and a huge flash of flame followed. The suspect was in the center of the explosion at the time. “Everything flew away from me and that was my luck,” the man previously told the judge.
“It’s a miracle that there were no serious injuries or even deaths,” the public prosecutor said during the hearing at the end of October. The explosion happened at two o’clock in the morning, a time when people are sleeping. “He endangered several local residents. He took that for granted,” the judge said.
The man had a drug supply in the home. He dealt in it. He also had prohibited weapons, including a revolver. He confessed to part of this property. He shifts his responsibility to an unknown person, the judge said. The suspect has been staying in a clinic in Beilen since the beginning of February. He must continue that treatment.
The sentence differs slightly from the public prosecutor’s sentence proposal. At the time, he imposed a demand of thirty-six months in prison, of which fifteen months were conditional. The local residents’ claims for damages totaling more than 7,000 euros have been granted.