Bretly D. convicted in assault case; still awaiting a date for murder trial

The court in Dordrecht has sentenced Bretly D. to 102 days in prison for assault, threats, and embezzlement of a driver's license. The jail time is equal to the time he has spent in preliminary imprisonment. D. is also suspected of the murder of Rotterdam psychiatrist Jean van Griensven in October of last year. He will be tried for that at a later date. The 25-year-old D. is in preliminary imprisonment for that crime and, therefore, will not walk free after the verdict from the Dordrecht court.

D. threatened a man with a knife in April 2023 after he had woke him up when he was sleeping in a doorway. In May of that year, he assaulted a fellow detainee in the prison in Dordrecht by hitting him in the face repeatedly. The man was left with a broken nose as a result of the attack.

He is now accused of more serious crimes. He allegedly murdered Van Griensven in October 2023 and then set his house on fire, possibly after a sex date between the two. The 60-year-old victim was found seriously wounded by the fire brigade while putting out the fire in his home on the Handelsplein in Rotterdam. The man had been shot from close range and died at the scene. It is still unclear whether the bullet was the reason for the man's death.

A week later, D. allegedly stabbed a man in the leg in Zutphen and then tried to strangle him. D. was arrested on 25 October 2023 in a hotel in Amsterdam after a manhunt that lasted several days.

It is not yet known when the murder case will be heard in court.

D. has had several run-ins with the police and justice department. He lived on the street from when he was 13 and was also in juvenile detention. He has been observed in the Pieter Baan Center for the past few months, but the results of the psychiatric observation are not yet available.