Rotterdam triple homicide suspect to appear in court for first time today
Fouad L., the man suspected of killing his neighbor, her daughter, and a lecturer at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam last year, will appear in court for the first time on Monday. The court explicitly asked that the 33-year-old man be present for this fifth preliminary hearing in the case after he skipped attending the previous four.
L. is accused of fatally shooting his 39-year-old neighbor Marlous and her 14-year-old daughter, Romy, at their home on Heiman Dullaertplein on September 28 last year. He then went to Erasmus Medical Center where he gunned down 43-year-old lecturer and general practitioner Jurgen Damen in a lecture hall. SWAT teams arrested the man at the university hospital.
L. was a medical student but did not seem to have a direct connection with Damen. There were reports that he may have been targeting the university hospital’s examination board after he failed to get his diploma. The university hospital wanted him to undergo a psychological assessment before graduating him after various authorities warned the university about worrying behavior from L.
Posts the man made on 4Chan suggest that he killed his neighbor and her child for reporting him for animal abuse. Other posts on the platform indicated that he was far-right leaning, with extremist views.
L. failed to attend previous pre-trial hearings on his case, so the court explicitly requested that he be present for this one, ANP reported. “Then he can get used to this room. It is also nice for victims and relatives to have seen him once,” the judge said at a previous hearing.
The substantive trial against L. will likely start early next year.
