The Public Prosecution Service (OM) is appealing against a decision by the council chamber of the Northern Netherlands court to no longer detain 30-year-old Theodoor V., suspected of involvement in the death of 20 people in a hospital in Assen. hold.
Theodoor V. from Veenhuizen was told on June 1 that he no longer has to remain in pre-trial detention. According to the judges, the suspicion against the man is not strong enough to keep him longer. Reasons for holding someone in pre-trial detention include that there must be more to the matter than just a vague suspicion, that there is a risk of flight, that it concerns a serious crime or that the suspect could sabotage the investigation.
V. was arrested in mid-March. During a conversation with GGZ Drenthe, he would have said several times that as a nurse he would have killed twenty patients during the corona pandemic. He would have done that to put them out of their misery. The suspect allegedly performed medical procedures on patients who, in his view, were terminal and suffering, without instructions from a doctor.
“More info than just V’s ‘confession'”
The problem for the judiciary is that Theodoor V. has not mentioned the names of his victims. And no information that can be traced back to his victims. This means that the judiciary has to look for deviating information in the files of dozens of patients. Apparently this has yielded too little so far. Nevertheless, the Public Prosecution Service says it has more information ‘than just those comments from Theodoor V. at the GGZ’.
The judiciary does not say what information that is. Not even now. “We simply do not agree with the decision,” says a spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service. There are now some ex-patients from that period who have stated about Theodoor V.
According to V’s lawyer Tjalling van der Goot, V. now denies that he has said that he has put twenty people out of their misery. Van der Goot will only explain at a later stage where the possible misunderstanding may have arisen.
‘Redeemed from suffering’
V. has been working for the Wilhelmina Hospital (WZA) since October 2019. The deaths in question are all from the period March 2020 to May 2022, during the corona pandemic. At the time, V. was a nurse in the hospital and worked in the lung department where corona patients were treated.
At the beginning of April, the judiciary announced that Theodoor V. himself said that he had put terminally ill patients out of their misery. V. had had a number of conversations with various social workers. It is unclear why he had conversations with the GGZ. He had not been active in the hospital for some time.
It is not yet known when the council chamber of the court in Leeuwarden will hear the case. If it is decided that V. should be taken back into custody, it could be for 30 or 60 days. V. has already been in custody for a month and a half. The Public Prosecution Service is now asking to detain him again for 60 days.
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