Tubbergen mayor was forced to move home after threats related to asylum seeker hotel

The mayor of Tubbergen, Anko Postma, was forced to move from his home after he was threatened because of the planned arrival of an asylum hotel in Albergen, Overijssel. This was confirmed by a spokesperson for the Twente municipality following reports from the magazine Binnenlands Bestuur.

Postma’s daughter discovered a GPS tracker under the mayor's car. A 49-year-old man from Albergen was sentenced to five months in prison in July of this year after he was accused of threatening the mayor. He also confessed during the hearing that he had placed the AirTag device under Postma’s car to track its movements.

The mayor told Binnenlands Bestuur that he lived in an apartment on the border of Tubbergen and Dinkelland initially, but he was told to leave the apartment by police because he was being followed.

His spokesperson reported that the need to move at the time had to do with the "total picture" surrounding the threats. Postma now lives on the edge of Tubbergen.

The asylum hotel in Albergen, which was opened in September, has space for 150 people. The mayor made a conscious decision not to attend the opening ceremony, he told the magazine.

"The asylum seekers' center is [a charged issue], so you shouldn't show your face prominently on the first day. You shouldn't want to turn it into a PR moment. I'm going there in a few weeks with the alderman for migration. And that will happen more often in the coming period," Postma told Binnenlands Bestuur.