Suspect in girl's (11) death in house fire to stay in custody
Thi H., a 28-year-old woman suspected of arson and murder in an Amersfoort house fire that killed her half sister 11-year-old Lindsey Ngo in January, will stay in custody. In court on Tuesday H.'s lawyer called for her immediate release, arguing that the police's use of an informant to get her confession, was in violation of her human rights, AD reports.
Lindsey was sleeping in her home on Gounodstraat on January 14th when it went up in flames around her. She could not get out of the house. Firefighters could only get to the 11-year-old girl after the flames were extinguished. She died of her injuries a day later. Another sister Linda (25) was also in the home at the time of the fire, but managed to get out in time.
The Public Prosecutor is charging Thi H. with murder. According to the Prosecutor, she knew that there were people in the house when she set fire to it. The strongest piece of evidence the Prosecutor has against H., is a confession she gave to a police informant on the day of her arrest, March 7th. She told the informant that she was angry at her mother, but that the fire turned out to be worse than she expected.
According to H.'s lawyer, Jan Wiebes, the police using an informant on the day of his client's arrest is against the rules. Anything that she said to the informant, must not be used as evidence, he argued. H. said nothing in court.
The court rejected Wiebes' demand for H.'s immediate release. "The purpose justified the means. Deploying an informant was allowed", the court decided.
In addition to her sister's death, the Public Prosecutor is also holding H. responsible for two attempts to set her mother's car on fire and vandalize it with paint. According to the Prosecutor, she is also responsible for a fire at restaurant Pascha on Stationstraat in 2015. Her mother and two half-sisters lived above the restaurant at the time.In this fire, the damage was limited to a broken door.
H. underwent a psychiatric examination at the Pieter Baan Center as part of the investigation. It was previously stated that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and carries a deep grudge against her mother.
