The Public Prosecution Service wants to appeal to rectify the mistake it made in the first instance in the case about the fatal shooting at the Nieuwe Meer in Amsterdam in which Bas van Wijk was killed. Due to an error in the indictment, the sentence for Samir El Y. was nine years in prison and TBS. Now justice demands 16 years in prison plus TBS. The Public Prosecution Service, but also the suspect, appealed.
Qualified manslaughter
The indictment in the first instance accidentally failed to mention the place and date of the crime when it was suspected of aggravated manslaughter (manslaughter and robbery). As a result, the court could not rule on qualified manslaughter but only on manslaughter. Higher penalties apply for qualified manslaughter. The charge has now been amended.
The now 23-year-old El Y. from Hoofddorp is said to have shot and killed 24-year-old Bas van Wijk at recreational lake De Nieuwe Meer in Amsterdam on August 8, 2020.
Van Wijk and his friends were in the De Oeverlanden recreation area on the Nieuwe Meer in Amsterdam when irritation arose between his group and that of the suspect. The suspect is said to have yelled at a friend of Van Wijk that he had to give ‘his clock’. When the friend did not want to give up his watch, the suspect would have shot through a balloon with a firearm.
Intervene
The victim intervened and tried to calm the situation. Subsequently, the suspect would have shot twice at Van Wijk, who was hit in the upper leg and in the torso. The suspect then took the watch from the friend. Van Wijk died of his injuries in hospital. El Y. was arrested a few days later. The weapon, cartridges and watch were found in the car he used.
Accidentally
The Advocate General further states that there is no question of murder because there was no premeditation. The OM finds it proven that stealing the watch is the reason for the manslaughter. The suspect wanted to take the watch and would therefore have committed the manslaughter. According to the Advocate General, it is therefore qualified manslaughter, and that also includes a higher penalty than for regular manslaughter.
The suspect states that he accidentally fired the third shot. At the NFI, the weapon was fired in a safe environment. According to the Public Prosecution Service, it is unlikely that the weapon could go off ‘suddenly’. The weapon does not fire with a light touch of the trigger, research showed. The Advocate General therefore assumes that El Y. deliberately pulled the trigger with all three shots.
