A 21-year-old Syrian asylum seeker in the Netherlands has been sentenced on appeal to three years in prison for the violent rape of a woman in Kampen, with six months of the sentence conditionally suspended.
The Arnhem Court of Appeal imposed a shorter probationary period and reduced the compensation awarded to the victim in an earlier ruling from the lower court in Zwolle.
The reduction in sentence meant the foreign rapist was free to leave the courtroom following the hearing as he had already served two-and-a-half years in custody.
In accordance with the probation conditions upon his release, the Syrian national will be required to undertake mandatory mental health treatment and be supervised by a probation officer.
The rape shocked the community of Kampen back in September 2022 when locals found the victim in a park in the city during the early hours. She told passers-by she had been raped and strangled during the attack.
The defendant at trial insisted the encounter was consensual, testimony that was ultimately rejected by both the lower and appellate courts.
The victim had originally been seeking damages to the tune of €17,500 for the psychological distress the attack had caused and ongoing mental health problems. However, this figure was reduced on appeal to just €5,000. A further claim for €2,500 must be pursued in the civil courts.
The sentence of two-and-a-half years reflected the asylum seeker’s age at the time of the attack, but remains inconsistent with the center-right Dutch government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on deporting foreign criminals.
Similar leniency was shown in March last year to a Syrian asylum seeker found guilty of sexually assaulting four 11-year-old girls in the swimming pool of a Center Parcs holiday resort in Zandvoort — he was sentenced to 60 hours of community service.
A court heard how some of the girls had their buttocks groped by the man, while others claimed the migrant had clamped his legs around their waists and pressed his genitals against their hips.
The migrant’s defense lawyer denied that any approach toward the girls was sexually motivated and claimed his client is homosexual — an increasingly common tactic for adult males arriving in Europe from predominantly Islamic countries to use due to the human rights protections afforded to them.
“If that is not a reason to immediately throw an asylum seeker out of the country, then our country is lost. Get rid of these kinds of people,” Geert Wilders, leader of the largest party in the Dutch government, wrote in response to the sentence.
There have been no reports of the man being obliged to leave the Netherlands, however.
In January this year, another high-profile case shocked the country and led to accusations of overly-lenient sentencing when five underage asylum seekers were convicted for the gang rape of a 31-year-old homeless woman in a public park in Helmond.
The court heard that the victim, sitting alone on a park bench, was approached, surrounded, and forcibly dragged to a grassy area. There, she was beaten, raped multiple times, and robbed of her mobile phone. Police found her in the park with visible injuries, including a swollen nose and jaw, and her underwear around her knees after the brutal assault.
The court sentenced four of the suspects to juvenile detention terms ranging from 12 to 15 months. The fifth suspect, found guilty of sexual assault but not rape, received a four-month sentence.