Amsterdam court criticised for lenient sentences for attackers of Israeli soccer fans

A Dutch court on Tuesday passed the first five sentences over last month’s attacks against Israelis in Amsterdam, prescribing punishments critics said were inappropriately mild.

The sentences, the heaviest of which was six months in jail, prompted indignation from Dutch Jews, who were shocked by the co-ordinated mass assaults on fans of Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv team who were in Amsterdam for a match.

Herman Loonstein, a prominent lawyer and Jewish community activist, said the prosecution bore some of the responsibility for the sentences, which he found excessively lenient.

“The prosecution rushed this but at the expense of their preparedness,” he said. “A better preparation could have led to an attempted homicide indictment.”

The Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) called the sentences “a regrettable sign,” but added that it was “good that prison sentences were imposed and that community service alone was not enough. This shows that the legal order is also shocked.”

Brigitte Wielheesen, a veteran journalist who is Jewish, called the sentences “meagre”, considering the maximum terms for the prosecuted offences were four and a half to 12 years. “Are aggravating factors, such as discriminatory aspects and major social impact, not taken into account?” she queried.

Defendant Sefa Ö., 32, received the heaviest sentence of six months in prison, De Telegraaf reported. The prosecution had sought two years. A hairdresser whose wife is pregnant, he was filmed kicking a man against a moving tram and punching another who was already lying on the ground.

Umutcan A., a 24-year-old man from The Hague, was sentenced to a month behind bars instead of the five months requested. He was seen kicking a man in the face and stealing a scarf from another victim. He described his actions as a “Jew hunt” in text messages, according to the indictment.

Lucas D. from Monnickendam received a sentence of 100 hours of community service instead of the requested three months of jail time.

Rachid O. directed people on a WhatsApp group to where they could find Jews to assault and inquired whether any had died. He was convicted of incitement to violence but sentenced to 10 weeks in prison as opposed to the requested four months.

Of the dozens of perpetrators who were documented assaulting Israelis on November 7, only seven have been prosecuted. The trial of the remaining two is ongoing.
The attacks were together one of the worst antisemitic incidents in the Netherlands since the Holocaust, involving real-time co-ordination online by hundreds of people.

The sentencing follows a gradual shift in the narrative in the Netherlands around the episode, which initially prompted condemnations from across the political spectrum.

However, left-wing politicians, including Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema, gradually changed their rhetoric, implying the mass assault was provoked by the Maccabi fans. Halsema earlier this month retracted her earlier use of the word “pogrom” in connection with the assaults.