Prosecutors want medical student who killed neighbors & professor jailed for 30 years
The 33-year-old Erasmus University medical student should be convicted of murdering his 39-year-old neighbor, her 14-year-old daughter, and his 43-year-old professor in a shocking day of violence in Rotterdam over a year ago. Fouad L. Confessed to the killings but also claimed that an imaginary computer inside his head ordered him to carry out the murders. Prosecutors were not swayed by his claim and asked the District Court in Rotterdam on Thursday to send the man to prison for 30 years, and an additional indefinite period of mandatory institutionalization in a TBS psychiatric facility.
“September 28, 2023, is a completely dark day that many Rotterdammers, and actually the whole of the Netherlands, still remember clearly. That afternoon there was chaos and panic in the city,” said the Public Prosecution Service (OM). “A man who was angry because he did not receive a diploma after studying for a long time took revenge in a terrible way.”
He first attacked his neighbors, shooting and killing 14-year-old Romy and then her mother, Marlous, in their home on Heiman Dullaertplein in the Rotterdam district of Delfshaven. He then went to Erasmus MC, where he gunned down the 43-year-old lecturer and general practitioner Jurgen Damen. He started fires in both his home and the lecture hall where he murdered Damen. The police arrested him at the university hospital a short time later.
After his arrest, the man confessed to killing the three victims and explained his motives. He said he had been planning the murders for six months. “The suspect got up at 5:00 a.m. because it was an important day,” the OM said. “He already had gasoline ready in his home to set the fires. He had decided to kill his neighbor because he believed she had violated his privacy.” He said he murdered 14-year-old Romy as revenge on her father, who allegedly insulted him months earlier.
He wanted to kill the lecturer because of an earlier conflict with another lecturer.” According to L., the lecturers unjustly failed him on tests after this conflict and got him into trouble with other lecturers.
L. caused “unfathomable sorrow,” the OM said. “Sorrow for the loss of a father, mother, sister, brother, partner, child, and grandchild.” The devastation they feel was very apparent when they spoke during the trial earlier this week. But the case also had a massive impact outside the victims’ circle of loved ones. “On witnesses who carried the 14-year-old girl outside, or saw her lying there. On witnesses in the classroom who saw their lecturer murdered before their eyes. On others in the Erasmus MC who he threatened.”
The severity of these crimes justifies a life sentence, the OM said. However, the prosecutors believe that a long sentence and compulsory, institutionalized treatment are more appropriate. “This was also the advice of experts who examined the suspect at the Pieter Baan Center,” the OM said. “The suspect has diminished responsibility as a result of a personality disorder. The experts currently estimate that there is a risk of recurrence and that treatment is needed to limit this. The OM believes that a long prison sentence and TBS would better protect society against this suspect.”
