Parents of murdered kids to protest in The Hague after Anne Faber's death
Martin Huisman, father of murdered 4-year-old Rowena, will be protesting with the parents of other murdered children in The Hague on Monday. They want the Dutch legal system to change. The death of 25-year-old Anne Faber from Utrecht triggered this protest. The man suspected of her murder, Michael P., was still serving a 12 year long prison sentence for raping two teenage girls at the time of Anne's murder, RTL Nieuws reports.
Anne Faber's body was found in a wooded area along Nulderpad in Zeewolde on Thursday, 13 days after she went missing. Michael P. was staying in an Altrecht psychiatric institution in Den Dolder at the time of her disappearance. He was transferred to the institution from prison, to start the process of reintroducing him to society. He enjoyed certain freedoms at the clinic, such as being allowed outside without supervision. He also had access to his mother's car. According to RTL, he was arrested based on a DNA match - one of his hairs was found on Anne's jacket.
Huisman felt very connected to the Anne Faber case, for several reasons, he told RTL. Anne's body was found very close to the spot where parts of 4-year-old Rowena's body was found in 2001. The little girl's stepfather Mike J. was sentenced to 12 years in prison and institutionalized psychiatric treatment for her gruesome murder. His institutionalized treatment was recently extended by two years. He appealed, and the case appears in court later this month.
Rowena's father can't imagine that his daughter's murderer may soon be allowed out on the streets again. "I'm serving life, will never get rid of my sorrow. This man should never be allowed out. These kinds of perpetrators should get life, or better yet the electric chair", Huisman said to the broadcaster. "The punishment system fails. If it continues like this, more people will die. How many idiots are still getting the chance to get back into society and do wrong again."
"I want to make clear to politicians that our system is flawed. For Rowena, but also for other victims. And how many innocent people still have to die?" Huisman said. He hopes to get a lot of support when he goes to the Binnenhof on Monday at 10:00 a.m., from the parents of other murder victims, but also form other people.
Whether this will have any effect, remains to be seen. Over the weekend crime journalist Peter R. de Vries published a letter that the father of one of Michael P.'s rape victims sent to politicians in 2012. His teenage daughter was raped by P. in Nijkerk on Queen's Day 2010. "I failed. I could not offer my daughter protection against the maniacs in this society. What may and can I do here?" the father wrote in 2012 to then Security and Justice State Secretary Fred Teeven.
He never got an answer, according to De Vries. "Father of raped girl Nijkerk often wrote to political leaders... but never got a response! Crocodile tears of politics", De Vries tweeted.
After the discovery of Anne's body, an online petition was started demanding that the Dutch legal system be reassessed. The petition also calls for the Ministry of Security and Justice to take responsibility for what happened to her and explain how this could have happened. By Monday morning, the petition already had over 387 thousand signatures.
