Prosecutors offer Badr Hari plea deal over assault of his ex-girlfriend: Report
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) offered kickboxer Badr Hari a plea deal. The 40-year-old man is accused of assaulting his ex-girlfriend earlier this year. Hari still has a week to respond, RTL Boulevard reports.
The assault took place in early February. The police arrested Hari after the incident. He was in custody for three nights.
Last Thursday, Hari and his lawyer, Cem Polat, attended an OM hearing at the Amsterdam courthouse, a spokesperson for the OM told RTL. In these hearings, the suspect speaks to a public prosecutor about settling the case. The OM is allowed to settle relatively minor offenses outside without taking the case to trial.
The OM spokesperson did not say exactly what the prosecutor offered Hari. Generally, it can involve penalties like a fine, compensation, or community service.
Hari’s lawyer refused to comment to RTL. The kickboxer still has a week to respond to the deal. If he refuses it, the case will go to trial.
The authorities disclosed very little information about the case, only saying that Hari was arrested after his ex-girlfriend reported him for assault. This isn’t Hari’s first domestic violence incident.
After his release from pre-trial custody, Hari told RTL that he realizes he disappointed people. “And what I’ve had to go through these past two years, well, I wouldn’t wish that on any father. I’ll leave it at that,” he said at the time.
Domestic violence is a major topic of discussion in the Netherlands at the moment after multiple femicides since July. 39-year-old Joeweela de Gelder was shot dead by her ex-husband in front of their two children in Gouda on July 16th. She’d been staying in a women’s shelter in hiding from her violent ex. Two days later, a 38-year-old woman was murdered in Vlijmen in Noord-Brabant. Her boyfriend is the suspect.
In August, there were three cases. Police arrested a man for killing his 34-year-old wife in the Veldhoven home they shared with their young children. An 80-year-old man is in custody for killing his 72-year-old wife and leaving her body in a canal near Tynaarlo. And the police are hunting for Omar Alhamad, wanted for killing his 24-year-old ex and the mother of his five children in Almere.
Earlier today, the country’s leading prosecutor in domestic violence and sex crimes cases commented on the issue, saying dozens of women are killed every year as a result of violence at the hands of a current or former romantic partner. “Many more women experience abuse and intimate terrorism,” said Judith van Schoonderwoerd den Bezemer from the Public Prosecution Service.
“Intimate terrorism” is a reference to the use of a pattern of abuse to wield power over someone for the purpose of control and coercion. “Attempts at strangulation are one of the most significant red flags for further escalation, and sometimes leading to femicide. It also occurs in other forms of violence and domestic violence,” she said in a press release about a new approach to collect forensic evidence when an individual is suspected of trying to choke their victim.
