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The highest sentence is for Hilversummer Yassine A., the 21-year-old half-brother of the main suspect Ali G. The latter will be charged at the end of June for involvement in many more attacks. Yassine A. was his “adjutant”, as the Public Prosecution Service put it. According to the court, he provided the attackers with the names and addresses of the targets and gave them the explosives. “Without him, the attacks would not have been committed,” the court said. Yassine A.’s sentence was six years less than the demand, because the court did not find everything proven.
Appeal
His lawyer Anis Boumanjal says that the sentence, despite being much lower than the demand, is disproportionate to what has been proven according to the court. “He was acquitted of seven of the twelve charges.” Yassine A. will appeal.
According to the court, the seven suspects were “guilty of involvement in attacks that gradually took on an increasingly terrifying and terroristic character”.
The drama for De Groot and the employees started in May 2019 with the discovery of a batch of cocaine in a load of fruit. The police were called in and the drugs were seized. The board members of De Groot then received threatening and intimidating text messages. If they didn’t pay 2.5 million in bitcoins, attacks would follow.
List names
Those were not empty words. Due to a mistake by the Public Prosecution Service, the attackers received a list with the names and addresses of (former) staff members, after which eight homes of dozens of completely innocent people were bombed with heavy fireworks bombs between 5 October and 25 November 2020. The attacks were always carried out at night when the residents were asleep.
According to the court, the attacks did not only hold the employees in an iron grip, but the entire Bommelerwaard. It is a miracle that there were no fatalities. Two brothers whose house was set on fire narrowly escaped death by jumping out of the window. Their house was completely destroyed.
Five perpetrators of the attacks were given prison terms ranging from 18 months to eight years. A sixth executor who was still a minor at the time of the attacks was given the maximum juvenile detention of two years, of which half a year was suspended.
Undercoveragenten
During the trial, lawyers strongly criticized the use of undercover agents. They would have put pressure on a suspect who acted as a driver in several attacks in a van by posing as criminals. The court finds that nothing illegal has happened, even though “it is a loss” that the conversation was neglected. “It was a one-off and limited action of 45 minutes and there was sufficient reason to use the method because the attacks continued and increased in severity.” Other investigative methods also failed, the court says.
Afterwards, this suspect retracted his incriminating statements. Not because he lied, but because he and his family were threatened, the court said. The convicted suspects are also ordered by the court to pay the victims compensation and damages, ranging from five thousand to seventy thousand euros.
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