A 32-year-old scholar who allegedly despatched threatening messages and a funeral card to The Hague campus of Leiden College final yr will face prosecution and a court docket trial. He was arrested in The Hague with a stabbing weapon in his pocket on January 19, and has been in custody ever since.
On the first preliminary court docket listening to it grew to become clear on Monday that the person will stay in pre-trial detention till his case is heard. It was not instantly clear if the suspected crimes had been linked to the campus being positioned on lockdown final yr.
The Nigerian man allegedly wrote that he was searching for a dagger, and he made references to the deadly capturing on the Erasmus Medical Heart in Rotterdam. The incident left three folks useless in September 2023.
The messages had been despatched to a number of academics between October 2023 and January 2024, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) mentioned. The person is suspected of violating legal guidelines associated to stalking and threats.
The suspect’s lawyer mentioned {that a} misunderstanding of her consumer’s intentions has been manufactured by investigators. She confirmed that he despatched messages to academics, however mentioned that when he used the Dutch phrase for a dagger, “dolk,” he truly meant to make use of the phrase, “tolk,” which interprets to interpreter.
“He doesn’t have a prison document,” she mentioned after the listening to. “His knife was in a locked part of his suitcase. Everybody peels an apple generally.”
Nonetheless, she didn’t request that he be launched pending trial. He was examined by psychological specialists in the course of the time he was in jail. The Public Prosecution Service will discover whether or not he might be admitted to a psychological facility within the meantime.
In October 2023, the Wijnhaven campus within the heart of The Hague was closed for 3 days because of “an elevated security threat.” It’s unclear whether or not this needed to do with the coed’s messages.
The District Court docket in The Hague has scheduled the trial to happen on July 12.
