Government failed in run-up to Hague supermarket worker's killing: reports

The Public Prosecution Service (OM), then-Minister Sander Dekker (Legal Protection), and implementing organizations failed to act in the run-up to Jamel L. fatally stabbing employee Antoneta Gjokja at an Albert Heijn in The Hague in 2023, wrote the Justice and Security Inspectorate and the Supreme Court in two reports.

Before the stabbing, Dekker decided not to implement a TBS measure - court-imposed institutionalized treatment - imposed in Curacao on suspect Jamel L. in the Netherlands. The Inspectorate called that decision “insufficiently comprehensible.”

According to the Supreme Court, the OM has “not properly” enforced or implemented legal provisions on several points. The organization failed to report crucial information to the Judicial Information Service (Justid). For example, the authorities were unaware that L. had been forcibly admitted to a psychiatric hospital in the United Kingdom for several years after being convicted of aggravated assault. The TBS measure imposed in Curacao was also unknown to the public prosecutor involved in the case, who did not know how to retrieve that information. According to the Supreme Court, this cannot be blamed on the individual prosecutor, but on the OM as an organization.

According to the Inspectorate, the organizations involved in helping L. did not take the appropriate measures for his behavior and personal circumstances and the risk he posed to society. According to chief inspector Hans Faber, his case is “unfortunately not new and unique” and shows problems that recur often. The Inspectorate urged the organizations to exchange more information and improve their file keeping.

L. was sentenced to ten years in prison and TBS with compulsory treatment by the court in The Hague last spring. The man appealed against the ruling.

Minister David van Weel, State Secretary Ingrid Coenradie (Both Justice and Security), and State Secretary Vincent Karremans (Youth, Prevention, and Sports) call it a “painful conclusion that the organizations involved could have done more to identify and keep Jamel L. in the picture.” They promise to work extensively on the recommendations together with the organizations involved and will provide a more extensive response in December.

The OM called the Supreme Court report a reason to “examine their working methods.” According to the highest boss of the OM, Rinus Otte, “the question” is whether “more knowledge would have led to different decisions and certainly whether this regrettable death could have been prevented. In any case, this case lacked information about the suspect’s criminal record.”

According to Otte, the recommendations made by the Supreme Court, such as ensuring a properly functioning registration system for imposed sanctions, provide “practical starting points for improvement.” He also said that the OM has already started working on some of the recommendations and that the coming period will be used to study them in detail.