Triple murder suspect Thijs H. (28) from Brunssum must be acquitted of murder. The premeditation necessary for this cannot be proven.
This was stated by Joost de Bruin, one of the two lawyers of Thijs H. on Wednesday in his plea before the court in Maastricht. On Tuesday, the public prosecutor demanded 24 years in prison and tbs with compulsory treatment for three murders. The hearing Wednesday started hours late because the suspect had not been picked up from the prison in Vught. "This morning night shift asked the wrong person if he wanted to get in the van and that person said no way. In the van they thought I was so," H said.
Follow all developments at the bottom of this post via reporter Claire van Dyck's Twitter feed.
Illness
H. should be acquitted of premeditation, De Bruin believes. "There was no calm deliberation and calm consultation. He was not able to make a well-considered choice, that does not fit this syndrome." According to experts at the Pieter Baan Center, H. killed his victims in a state of psychosis. "You can make choices but in a disturbed reality."
The Pieter Baan Center deems H. completely insanity-prone, but the prosecution highly doubts this. "It cannot be reconciled" that, according to the prosecution, there is no need to doubt the expertise of the reporters, but at the same time they have made major mistakes.
Thijs H.'s defense believes that the prosecution is going in "with a straight leg." Any critical comment on Mondrian's formulation of the PBC's criticism expressed last week is "completely lacking." If only half of what Mondrian states would be true, the reporters are not fit for their job, De Bruin said.
Flared
According to De Bruin, there is much to criticize in the prosecutors' indictment. It is full of "insinuations." "Sneer after sneer" was doled out to virtually everyone having anything to do with the case. "The parents were completely slagged off without being given the opportunity to defend themselves, but the prosecution makes no judgment on that. It doesn't get much more cynical."
It is true that Thijs H. adjusted his statements on many points, said his counsel Serge Weening. "But those changes, according to the experts at the Pieter Baan Center, fit perfectly with the recovery he was going through at the time." Through a timeline, he argued that several treatment providers did note signs of schizophrenic disorder from late 2017, where the prosecution argues there was hardly any. "After his suicide attempt in November 2018, all alarm bells should have been ringing, but that did not happen."
https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20200701_00166469/advocaten-thijs-h-vragen-vrijspraak-voor-moord
