ROERMOND - The court in Roermond has sentenced one of the five men who committed an armed robbery of a couple in Roermond in November 2009 to four years in prison. The 25-year-old Zachana O. from Roermond is the only suspect the police were able to track down from this brutal robbery in a home on the Heinsbergerweg in Roermond.
He denies being involved in the robbery, in which the perpetrators used pistols and a knife. His lawyer Serge Weening has appealed the verdict. The prosecution had demanded five years in prison against O.. The perpetrators forced their way into the house on Heinsbergerweg at around 7 a.m. on Wednesday, November 18, 2009. They had hidden in bushes beforehand. On the driveway, the men overpowered the then 54-year-old resident, who wanted to go to work, with great violence and coarse threats.
Inside, the man and his wife were beaten and given a knife to their throats and pistols to their heads. In the process, the robbers shouted to each other "stab her to death" and "shoot him to pieces." After the perpetrators handcuffed their victims and taped their mouths, they disappeared with 950 euros, 12 watches, two bracelets, a cell phone, a debit card, a passport and the keys to a passenger car. On February 23, 2010, the television program Opsporing Verzocht paid attention to the notorious robbery in Roermond. During and after that broadcast, Zachana O. made telephone calls from the De Donderberg neighborhood about the program. The police eavesdropped on those conversations.
Moreover, after Zachana O. was apprehended, traces on gloves left behind after the robbery were found to match O.'s fingerprints. Counsel and his client contend that the real perpetrators deliberately left the gloves there to frame O..
