Asylum seekers hold silent march for murdered Abcoude girl
Over 20 residents and former residents of the asylum shelter in Amsterdam Zuidoost held a silent march on Wednesday evening to commemorate 17-year-old Lisa from Abcoude. All of them expressed their sadness over the teen girl’s brutal murder a week ago, and several added that they were disgusted that this crime is being used for political gain.
The march was organized by residents of the asylum shelter on Hogehilweg, the same shelter where the 22-year-old suspect in Lisa’s murder was arrested. They walked from the Strandvliet metro station to the location on Holterbergweg in Duivendrecht, where the girl was killed, and placed flowers at the scene.
“It’s so sad. She was murdered by someone we lived with at the same location,” one participant told AT5.
“I feel so sad, and I feel terrible that this crime is used as a political card in the social media. It’s disgusting how some people use it. This should not be the way we deal with this crime,” another told NOS.
“I think it’s important that we express our grief. To Dutch society and to Lisa’s family,” another march participant told the Amsterdam broadcaster. “This criminal must be punished, and he only represents himself. Not all asylum seekers.”
Lisa was killed while cycling home from a night out with friends in Amsterdam. She left her friends in the Leidseplein area at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, August 20. The police found her body in a ditch on Holterbergweg around 45 minutes later.
The police arrested the 22-year-old suspect on Friday. He was already in custody for raping a woman on Weesperzijde in Amsterdam, a few kilometers from Lisa’s murder, the previous Friday.
PVV leader Geert Wilders was quick to use the girl’s murder for political gain when it became clear the suspect was arrested in an asylum shelter. During a parliamentary debate on the crisis in the Dutch Cabinet on Wednesday, he cited Lisa’s killing as a reason for people to vote for his far-right party and turn against asylum seekers and people of non-Western descent.
“That poor 17-year-old girl who was murdered by someone staying in an asylum center, who was detained and released a week earlier for a sexual offense,” Wilders said in a parliamentary debate on the Cabinet crisis on Wednesday. “Unfortunately, this could happen to anyone in the Netherlands. It mustn’t happen again. If you’re fed up with it, if you think something needs to be done, vote for the PVV. If you’re okay with all this, go to D66 for all I care.”
Wilders later retracted the claim that the suspect had been arrested a week earlier after the Amsterdam police released a statement pointing out it was untrue.
