Police kept quiet about having wrong man in custody for Leiden mass stabbing: report
After a mass stabbing at a church center in Leiden, which left one man dead and two critically injured, The Hague police quickly realized they did not have the right man in custody. But they decided to keep quiet about the fact that the actual attacker was still on the loose, sources told De Telegraaf.
The stabbing happened on July 14 at Diaconal Center De Bakkerij in Leiden. A 66-year-old man, who volunteered at the church center, died in the attack. Two others, an employee of De Bakkerij and an employee of Vluchtelingenwerk in the same building, got seriously hurt. Both have since been discharged from the hospital.
The police started looking for the perpetrator. That afternoon, they arrested a 39-year-old man from Leiden. According to the Telegraaf’s sources, the police immediately doubted this was the man they sought. He did not match the description - he didn’t have a headwound sustained in a scuffle during the attack. An urgent DNA test confirmed it that evening. His DNA did not match that of the perpetrator, the sources said.
On Saturday morning, the police quietly began a new manhunt for the perpetrator. On Monday, the police arrested a second suspect - the actual perpetrator, according to the newspaper’s sources. It concerns a 38-year-old man from Leiden with a criminal record and known to be dangerous, the sources said. The first suspect was released from custody.
The Telegraaf’s sources are critical of the police’s decision not to reveal that the suspect was still at large. “He could have killed more people. Now they are busy figuring out what he has been up to in those three days,” a source said.
A spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service (OM) told the Telegraaf that the authorities always keep all options open in an investigation, also after a suspect has been arrested. “In this investigation, we looked further, and as we know, it is not customary to make statements about an ongoing investigation. That only happens in exceptional cases, when there are interests that outweigh the investigation interests.”
