Acquittal in 1981 record producer murder

On Tuesday the court acquitted Martien Hunnik for the murder of record producer Bart van der Laar. This acquittal comes in the review process of this case, almost 35 years after the murder, NU.nl reports. Van der Laar was found critically injured with a bullet wound in his head in his Hilversum home in November 1981. He died in hospital three days later. In 1984 Hunnik was sentenced to two years in prison and institutionalized psychiatric treatment. He served this sentence. Hunnik was convicted and sentenced largely based on condemning statements he made. Last year the Supreme Court in The Hague ruled that the case had to be reopened as new investigation revealed that Hunnik's statements were unreliable. The new investigation showed that Hunnik tended to distort the truth and even invented stories. If the unreliability of his statements were known during the initial trial, he would have been acquitted, according to the Supreme court in May last year. The Public Prosecutor asked for an acquittal in the review, stating that Hunnik's confession, made in January 1983 and retracted three months later, is no longer credible. Hunnik spent nearly eight years in prison and psychiatric institutions, but has been a free man for some time.