Family of Hague stabber suing mental health institution

The family of 31-year-old Malek F., who stabbed and seriously injured three people in The Hague earlier this month, plans to sue mental health institution Parnassia. The family holds the institution responsible for "causing serious bodily harm", the family's lawyer confirmed, NU.nl reports.

According to the lawyer, the family reported to the institution multiple times that F. needed help. F. was admitted to the institution for six weeks after he threw his furniture out of a window earlier this year. He left the institution after he married a fellow patient, according to AD.

On Saturday May 5th, F. attacked three people with a knife near Hollands Spoor station in The Hague. All three victims had to be hospitalized. The police shot F. in the leg and arrested him.

According to F.'s brother, he reported very often to Parnassia and other authorities that his brother was not doing well and that he was very concerned about him. But nothing was done with those report, he says.

"We therefore want to file a report for the infliction of serious bodily harm because they did not intervene in time. In the past it often happened that such reports were not valued. That is why it is good that we take a critical look at this", the family's lawyer Job Knoester said, according to NU.nl. The family and lawyer are in the process of collecting evidence to support their charges.

While F. was in Parnassia in March, the police received an anonymous letter saying that F. would commit a terrorist attack. The police shared this information with intelligence service AIVD and discussed it with experts from the Hague municipality. It was judged that the man could not be regarded as someone with "terrorist backgrounds", but that this also "could not be excluded". 

This anonymous tip was not properly registered in the system, the police chief in The Hague said on Wednesday, according to the newspaper. As a result, the Hague triangle of prosecutor, police and mayor was not aware of the tip immediately after the stabbing. If the registration was done properly, the tip would not have been handled differently, he added. But it would have meant that the triangle knew about it. 

The police searched F.'s home during their investigation into the stabbings and found nothing that indicated that he had "terrorist ideas", the Prosecutor said earlier this week.