Every once in a while I have a piece of news to put on my crime blog:
Justice has dismissed the case against 36-year-old Bosnian Estin H., suspected of committing an extremely violent robbery of Limburg artist Marieke Russel and her partner in Stein in 2008, for lack of evidence. He therefore goes free. This is confirmed by his lawyer Françoise Landerloo.
The Stein home robbery of which H. was suspected took place on December 4, 2008. Three men entered a home above the Jan Linders on Heerstraat-Noord in Stein that evening. Artist Marieke Russel was working in her studio when the three masked robbers suddenly stood next to her. She was threatened with a weapon, kicked and punched. Her husband and an acquaintance were also severely beaten.
Russell's husband suffered several skull fractures, among other injuries.The perpetrators demanded money and the key to the Jan Linders' safe.Eventually, they made off with money from several purses. Police tracked down Estin H. through DNA left at the crime scene.
When the national wanted list, a list of the country's most wanted criminals, was launched in January 2010, Estin H. was one of the suspects on that list. He was eventually arrested in Vienna after a burglary, but the prosecution in Limburg is now empty-handed anyway due to lack of evidence.
"It seems right to me that this case should not be brought before the court now that the mere finding of my client's DNA says nothing about his presence at the time and place of the robbery. I am going to claim damages for the time he was unjustly detained in Austria and the Netherlands," Landerloo said.
