Dutch teen jailed for ‘shocking’ Facebook killing
THE HAGUE—A Dutch court Monday jailed a teenage boy for stabbing a 15-year-old girl to death and trying to kill her father after she had allegedly posted derogatory comments about another girl on Facebook.
The boy, identified as 15-year-old Jing Hua K., was jailed for a year and ordered to spend at least two years in a psychiatric facility for the January 14 murder in the eastern city of Arnhem.
The sentence is the maximum in the Netherlands for a minor.
“The court is of the opinion the defendant deliberately killed” the girl, Joyce Hau, known as Winsie to her friends, as well as attempted to murder her father, judges said in a verdict which was posted online.
Prosecutors told the court the murder happened after Hau had had a fight on the social networking site Facebook with a 16-year-old friend, who was identified as Polly W.
Prosecutors said Polly’s boyfriend, 17-year-old Wesley C. then allegedly phoned and spoke to Jing Hua K. via Facebook to arrange the killing, and also allegedly discussed the possibility of killing Hau’s entire family.
Jing Hua K. went to Hau’s home, saying he had something to give her. When she came to the door, he repeatedly stabbed her with a knife and then attacked her father, scarring his face for life, the court heard.
“With the knife he deliberately stabbed her in the neck and face to take her life,” judges said. The girl was left “in a lake of blood” and died in hospital five days later.
“The defendant did not know Winsie personally, but he acted at the request of or on the instructions of another or others,” the verdict said.
Prosecutors said Polly’s boyfriend Wesley C. had on December 9 last year asked Jing Hua K. “to silence someone.”
During the case, witnesses testified that Jing Hua K. was promised 150 euros ($188) or “a few drinks” if he carried out the murder.
In their sentencing, judges also said the troubled teen suffered from “a serious behavioral disorder with psychopathic traits.”
Jing Hua’s mother said her son had previously offered other teens money if they would play with him, according to the indictment.
Court spokesman Jaap Otten told AFP that the details of the Facebook comments could not be discussed, pending the trials of Polly W. and Wesley C., for which no date had yet been set.
