The Public Prosecution Service demanded sixteen years in prison on Thursday against 47-year-old Hamid S. from Den Ham for the murder of 32-year-old Jihad Jafo from Enschede. His bound and wrapped body was found by passers-by on May 22, 2022 in the Almelo-De Haandrik canal near Bruchterveld (a village in the municipality of Hardenberg). Jafo had already been missing for more than five months.
Birthday
Jihad Jafo goes missing on December 6, 2021. He leaves that evening just after 8 p.m., on the birthday of one of his children, with Hamid S. in a car from his home in Enschede. That is the last time he is seen in the flesh; He no longer uses his phone.
Two gunshot wounds
On December 8, 2021, the police posted a first investigation notice and later attention was paid to his disappearance in the TV program Opsporing Verzocht. It was not until May 22, 2022 that his dumped body surfaced in the Almelo-De Haandrik canal, wrapped with tape, wrapped in a blue blanket and garbage bags, tied with the cord of a decorative curtain and weighted with a fire hose stand. The victim is found in the canal with two gunshot wounds, in the chest and through the head.
Drug courier
From the start, the investigation took into account a conflict within the criminal environment, as Jihad has been active as a drug courier in the past. According to the investigation, Jihad also interacted a lot with people in Gronau, Germany, just across the border from Enschede. He sometimes visited catering establishments there.
Arrest
The motive ultimately turns out to be different. At the beginning of January 2023, the Chief Public Prosecutor will offer a reward of 20,000 euros for the golden tip that leads to the solution of the case.
After extensive investigation, Hamid S. was arrested in January 2023. The Public Prosecution Service sees sufficient evidence that he both killed Jafo and disposed of the body. ‘The suspect is the last person seen alive with the victim. His statement that he dropped the victim off at a roundabout in Enschede with a third person is not plausible.’ About an hour after that moment, Jafo’s phone still registers near S.’s home, many tens of kilometers away.
Supermarket
A (not very common) fire hose stand to which the body is attached is the same one that disappeared from the building that Hamid S. rents and runs a business in. Two DNA traces are found on the tied body that match: one trace of S. himself is found on a button made with a fleece blanket. A hair on the adhesive layer of the tape matches one of his employees at his company. Hamid S. was the Syrian owner of a supermarket in Hoogeveen.
The Public Prosecution Service: ‘A body is not simply disposed of by someone. That happens with an interest. And where the suspect does not explain anything about this, reasoning may or must be done according to the rules of logic. It is most likely that the suspect disposed of the body because he himself was involved in the death of the victim. Most people who are guilty of disposing of a corpse have themselves played a role in the death of the victim.’
Broken relationship
Although the investigation initially assumed a conflict in the criminal environment as a motive, the reason appears to lie in a broken relationship between the victim’s wife and Hamid S.
The Public Prosecution Service: ‘He has made no secret of his desire to have a relationship with his victim’s wife. In addition, tens of thousands of euros were allegedly taken from him by the victim and his wife with promises and/or suggestions that they did not keep. There is no reason to assume, and there is also no evidence, that anyone other than the suspect was responsible for the murder and subsequently throwing the victim into the water at any time.’
The Public Prosecution Service demands sixteen years in prison against Hamid S. The public prosecutor during the motivation of the sentence:
‘The victim’s young children will grow up without a father, and will see around them, with friends, what it is like to have two parents; this entails a constant confrontation with the death of their father and the associated grief. By hiding the body, the suspect added extra suffering to the surviving relatives. For a long time they had to live in uncertainty about the fate of their loved one, oscillating between hope that he would return and fear that something had happened to him. This murder is extra gruesome because the victim was wrapped like a parcel and dumped without any respect for life and body after his death.’
