A dispute between the suspect and a group of supporters escalates into a fight and stabbing incident at the station square in Den Bosch. This all takes place on Sunday, March 20, 2022. Three men and a bystander who came to the suspects aid are injured. Their scars still remind them of the incident 3.5 years later. A 40-year-old man from Zaltbommel has been arrested and appeared before the judge today. The Public Prosecution Service demands 48 months in prison against him.
The police video team, consisting of camera image specialists, reviews the footage from the incident and accurately describes what happened that evening. They are trained to discover the smallest details in visual material. Based on this, the public prosecutor has made a reconstruction of the events. It appears that around 19:20, a noisy group of Ajax supporters walks from the train from Amsterdam to the station square in Den Bosch. The suspect approaches the group.
Several witnesses later testify that the atmosphere quickly becomes grim. The suspect then lunges at one of the victims with a knife. Subsequently, another man from the group and the suspect attack each other, with a second victim also being injured in the head. While the suspect then falls to the ground and is beaten and kicked by several men, he swings his knife around him. As a result, one of the victims suffers a cut to the face and an arterial bleeding in the leg, and a bystander who wanted to help the suspect when he was on the ground and being beaten and kicked suffers a stab wound to the knee.
Self-defense or not?
Today, the central question was whether the suspect acted solely in self-defense and can therefore invoke self-defense. According to the Public Prosecution Service, this is not the case. The suspect has taken an aggressive stance during the incident by provoking, seeking confrontation, and attacking with his knife twice. Instead, he could have chosen to leave. He could and should have acted differently.
Scarred for life
The public prosecutor: This suspect went out with a sharp knife and never hesitated to use it after he sought confrontation with a group of football supporters. The victims are, literally and figuratively, scarred for life by the scars they have retained from the stabbing incident. Fortunately, they survived, but it could have ended differently. The suspects behavior can only be described as a form of senseless, excessive violence.
The judge will issue a ruling in two weeks.
