Trial against Amsterdam fake cocaine murder suspect restarts today

The trial against drug dealer Flip S. restarts in the court of Amsterdam today. The 43 year old S. is suspected of selling white heroin as cocaine to tourists in Amsterdam. The lawsuit was considerably delayed because victims and witnesses had to be questioned more extensively in England, Denmark, Australia and Ireland, Dutch newspaper AD reports. According to the Public Prosecutor, S. sold the harmful drugs to a large number of tourists in Amsterdam between October 2014 and February 2015. Three British tourists died after snorting the white heroin, believing it was cocaine. Fourteen others were injured. The Prosecutor is charging S. with the murder of the three British tourists and the attempted murder or manslaughter of several others. S. turned himself in to the police in early April last year after recognizing himself in surveillance camera footage the police distributed. The footage showed him selling drugs to three Danish tourists on the Stadhouderskade on February 25th, 2015. The three Danes survived snorting the heroin after hospital treatment. S. confessed to selling the drugs to the three Danish tourists, but not to any of the other drug sales. According to him, he had no idea that he was selling white heroin instead of cocaine. According to the officer who took his statement after he turned himself in, S. was full of repentance when he came in and quickly burst into tears, Het Parool reports. S. stated that he was the one "who caused three tourists' deaths" and that he sold lethal drugs to them. In the criminal file the officer quotes him saying: "I want this to be done. I can not live with it. It has to stop before more victims fall." S. strongly denies that he was the one who sold white heroin to the three British tourists who died. According to S.'s lawyer, his client only sold white heroin as cocaine once and moreover not intentionally. "If you want to defraud tourists, you sell them paracetamol from the pharmacy", he said according to Het Parool. "After a year of investigation, the judiciary has no more evidence in hand than my client's confession."