Arrest in Enschede grow shop quadruple murder; At least one an innocent bystander: Police
Two men were taken into custody on Tuesday near Dordrecht in connection with a multiple homicide in Enschede. One of the pair, a 26-year-old from the Overijssel city, was still in police detention Thursday night in connection with the shooting deaths of the four victims.
Police said the four victims were gunned down Tuesday afternoon at a grow shop that was the subject of an investigation earlier in the year. Two men were arrested at the site with 17 kilograms of dried hemp buds on June 20, police note. Both of those men were among the victims in this week's shooting. They are Hengelo resident Arthur Sargsyan, a 34-year-old man with an Armenian heritage, and Tuan Nguyen, 43, a man living in Enchede of Vietnamese descent, according to reports from AD and De Gelderlander.
The victims include 27-year-old Maijkel Akfidan from Hengelo, a father of a two-month-old baby girl and successful catering entrepreneur. His family was reportedly shocked, newspaper De Gelderlander reported after speaking with a family friend. He was expected at a family function on Tuesday night, having told his wife he had to visit a wholesale business in the afternoon.
"We do not understand. Who was he with? Why was he there? He was on his way to the wholesaler; did he call someone while on the road? Did he have the wrong friends?" the friend asked expressing bewilderment. "He had nothing to do with drugs; he never used them. He even quit smoking when his daughter was born."
The fourth victim was 62-year-old Max Klaassen. Police believe Klaasen, from Arnhem, was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Klaasen ran a small business in Huissen specializing in fertilizer and plant food. He visited clients in Deventer before his fatal business call in Enschede. The Huissen business had no known ties to the illegal drug trade, police told AD.
His wife, Sonja, began to panic when she still had not heard from Klaassen by 8 p.m. She called his business partner, Fred Driessen, to tell him she planned to call police.
"He does not drink alcohol. He did not smoke cigarettes, let alone a joint. That man has never seen a fleck of weed. I am convinced of that," Driessen told De Gelderlander. Their business, F-Max, would refuse delivery of goods to shops where they saw anything out of the ordinary, he stated.
"It is unbelievable what happened to Max. I do not get it. It was a real coincidence that he was there."
