Suspect (18) arrested for violent sexual assault of EUR student

The police have arrested an 18-year old resident of Rotterdam suspected of sexually assaulting  an EUR student. The victim was injured seriously in the attack.

“Everybody on the case was extremely motivated to find and arrest the suspect as soon as possible,” says lead investigator Albert Jansen of the Rotterdam police. “Even though the arrest won’t reduce the victim’s suffering, we hope that it will help her in dealing with the trauma.”

Saturday morning around 5:30, the student, who is in her early 20, was attacked and raped near her home in the De Esch neighbourhood of Rotterdam. Residents of the neighbourhood told RTV Rijnmond that she had been strangled with a bicycle chain.

Last Monday, the victim – an Indonesian student – was still in the intensive care unit. “Her family is now in Rotterdam to look after her. Together with the Indonesian embassy they will consider which necessary follow-up steps need to be taken,” PPI-chairman Zaid Ramadhan Hanan told Erasmus Magazine earlier. No information has been released about the victim’s current condition.