Man gets 14 years for pouring hot oil on asylum center employees

The court of appeal in Den Bosch sentenced 44-year-old Tarek S. to fourteen years in prison on Monday for the severe premeditated assault of two employees of the asylum seekers' center in Sweikhuizen, Zuid-Limburg. S. doused the two women with boiling hot oil in January 2022. They suffered severe burns. The sentence is two years higher than previously imposed by the court and also exceeds the recommendation of the Public Prosecution Service by two years.

S., originally from Iran, said he was angry because he had recently heard that he would be transferred to another asylum seekers' center.

He had stocked up on five bottles of sunflower and frying oil in preparation for the incident. On the day in question, he heated the oil in two pans in the kitchen of the asylum seekers' center on the third floor. He then set off the fire alarm by causing smoke with a lit tissue, which led to the two female employees coming to him to help. When they walked up the stairs, S. doused them with the oil. According to the court, S. "lured" the two women into a trap.

The victims have had to undergo several operations and are still undergoing treatment. "The injuries inflicted are permanent and disfiguring," the court notes in its ruling. "For the rest of their lives, the victims will be confronted with the consequences of the severe burns on their bodies." The court ruled that S. must pay the victims almost 109,000 euros in damages.

The court in Maastricht sentenced S. to twelve years in prison. The court felt the recommendation of the Public Prosecution Service at the time - seven years - was much too low, given the gruesomeness of the facts. The suspect appealed because he felt the imposed sentence was too severe. The court finds that the imposed twelve years do not do sufficient justice to what S. deliberately did.

Both victims believe that the court sent "the right signal" by punishing S. more severely than the court did, although one of them notes that "no sentence does justice to the seriousness of the acts that were committed".

S. came to the Netherlands in 2015 as a political refugee. Various asylum procedures came to nothing. Because of the criminal case, his chances of a residence permit are gone forever.