Amsterdam, July 26, 2023

Two men - aged 72 and 73 - are acquitted of any involvement in the murder of a 23-year-old man on the night of April 8-9, 2021, in Amstelveen. The victim was found lifeless in a van in Amsterdam-North on April 12, 2021. The file shows that the victim was intensively observed in the four months before his death. A motive for the murder has so far not been found.

The 72-year-old man is acquitted of complicity and accessory to the murder of the 23-year-old man, and of acts of preparation for murder. The same applies to the 73-year-old man, despite his involvement in observations of the later victim. Since both men are acquitted, the claims of the relatives are declared inadmissible.
The court rejects the prosecutor's reasoning that it is established that the observations by the 73-year-old man and the communication of the victim's location must have had a criminal purpose because the victim was eventually shot. Indeed, this does not say that the 73-year-old man knew that the observations served to commit a liquidation. The same is true of his last observation. Then the victim - according to his statement - was shot dead in his presence. The circumstance that he helped the gunman after the murder to put the victim's lifeless body in the van that belonged to the victim is also not sufficient. There is no evidence that he played a role in the murder itself.