AH stabbing suspect said the victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time
The 56-year-old man accused of stabbing an Albert Heijn supermarket employee to death in The Hague in June said the victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time, De Telegraaf reported on Thursday. During the first court hearing in The Hague, he claimed that he sought revenge due to previous incidents in other Albert Heijn branches.
Jamel L. is suspected of fatally stabbing a 36-year-old employee at an Albert Heijn in the center of The Hague. The attack occurred in the Turfmarkt branch on June 20 in the morning. The victim died on the spot. Jamel L. was arrested outside the store.
During the hearing on Thursday, he acknowledged that the Albert Heijn supermarket employee was an unintentional victim and that it could have been any employee present.
"On the day of the crime, I went to Albert Heijn to buy a can of orange juice," he stated in court. "It suddenly occurred to me that I had to settle something with them, so I asked an employee for a knife," L. continued. "After receiving the knife, I opened the packaging and walked towards the bakery, almost without thinking. That lady just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wanted to take revenge."
He attributed his actions to several unpleasant experiences at other AH branches, as he previously told the police.
On Thursday, his lawyer stated that much of what has been written by the media is incorrect. She remarked that there were many losers in this case, and "my client is one of them."
After the stabbing, it turned out later that the suspect had a long criminal history in the Netherlands, England and Curaçao. In 2018 he was sentenced in Curaçao to serve an indefinite period in a psychiatric prison facility, but the Netherlands refused to adopt that measure.
Since September 2022, once L. was back in the Netherlands, he came into contact with the police because of new crimes. At the beginning of this month, Jamel L. was sentenced by the District Court in Rotterdam for violence and for threatening municipal employees “in the Rotterdam region.”
The Public Prosecution Service wanted L. to be admitted to the psychiatric observation clinic Pieter Baan Center (PBC), but the court rejected that request. L. ultimately received a sentence equivalent to his pre-trial detention and was therefore immediately released after the verdict was handed down.
It was also later revealed that the man had recently asked the municipality of The Hague for help. The city said that it was not possible to find suitable shelter for him in the short term because of his aggressive and intimidating behavior.
The investigation will not be completed within three months. The next hearing will be on December 21.
