Police acted correctly in Maastricht fatal stabbings, Inspectorate says

Emergency services acted correctly and performed their duties properly during stabbing incidents in Maastricht last year in which two people were killed, the Inspectorate of Justice and Security concluded after investigating the incident, NOS reports.

On December 14th a man and a woman from Syria were stabbed to death within ten minutes of each other. The authorities feared that this may be a terrorist attack and the terrorism protocol was implemented. As a result police officers stopped ambulances a few hundred meters from the spot where the female victim lay wounded on the street. She later succumbed to her injuries. Police officers and paramedics who were trying to help the male victim a short distance away, were threatened and hampered in their work. As a result, it took longer before they could respond to the other stabbing.

According to the Inspectorate, it is highly unlikely that the female victim would have survived the stabbing if ambulances had arrived 10 minutes earlier. The Inspectorate also concluded that all protocols were well executed.

The suspected perpetrator in both stabbings, Osama I., was arrested later that evening in a mosque in the city. He was also briefly detained two days before the stabbings for assaulting someone in a gym, but was released from custody after a forensic doctor examined his mental condition.

The female victim's family is disappointed in the Inspectorate's conclusions and still believes that the woman would still be alive if help had arrived sooner, according to NOS. The lawyer representing the the victim's family is considering having an external agency investigate exactly happened that evening.