Prosecutor and defence want to know again whether Fouad L. was criminally accountable

Fouad L. will again be examined by psychiatric experts from the Pieter Baan Centre, at the request of the Public Prosecution Service, of Fouad L. himself and of his new lawyer, Theo Hiddema. This was decided on Tuesday during the preliminary hearing in the appeal. The ruling is due in December 2026.

Is Fouad L. criminally accountable or not? Both the Public Prosecution Service and the defence of the former medical student want an answer to that question. For different reasons, both want L. to be given TBS, compulsory psychiatric treatment. The defence sees L.’s actions as ‘inseparably linked to the disorder in his brain’. The Public Prosecution Service sees TBS combined with a long prison sentence as the best way to keep L. out of society. Relatives of L.’s victims fear that otherwise, after 25 years, L. will apply for clemency and receive it after 28 years, despite the judge emphasising in February that the chances of success for this are very small.

On 28 September, L. first shot his 14-year-old neighbour Romy dead, then her mother Marlous (39), and later Erasmus MC lecturer Jurgen Damen (43). The attack caused enormous panic in the hospital. L. had prepared for this day for months, from the moment he was denied his medical degree because he first had to undergo a psychological assessment. L. saw that as a sign that he would never become a doctor, which made him furious and seeking revenge.

Does tbs make sense?

In February, the court convicted L. of, among other things, triple murder, two arson attacks, and making threats at Erasmus MC. The sentence: life imprisonment, which in the Netherlands truly means life. According to that court, TBS was not an option for L. The aim of that measure is always a return to society, and the court didn’t see that as a viable option.

The judge was clear in her ruling: she considered L. to be fully accountable. Someone who can almost complete an entire medical degree, who can plan murders and an attack in such detail and adjust them until the last moment, can, in her view, be held responsible for what he’s done.

He was also reproached for showing no sign of remorse. L. was even convinced that he had ‘prevented something worse’, a statement he made that caused great emotion among relatives and survivors at the hearing earlier this year. L. had initially devised a far worse plan. A bloodbath, as he described it himself. He had negotiated with himself about it in his head, he told the court in January. He said he had a kind of ‘computer’ in his head with which he spoke.

The Hague Court of Appeal wants the Pieter Baan Centre to answer one additional question: can the goals of TBS still be achieved for L. after he has served a long prison sentence? A psychiatrist from the Pieter Baan Centre described L. in January as having ‘severely diminished accountability’, but also said that he would only benefit from treatment if it would start quickly. That is incompatible with L.’s actions, the evidence for them, which the defence doesn’t dispute, and the prison sentence attached to them.

New psychological assessment

Lawyer and former Forum voor Democratie MP Theo Hiddema called the Rotterdam court’s earlier conclusion that L. was fully accountable ‘cobbled together’. According to Hiddema, the court sees “moments in which L. appears rational. He is said to have had time for reflection, like a more or less normal person. I find that contrived, because everything he’s done is inseparably linked to the disorder in his brain”, the lawyer concluded, referring to L.’s depersonalisation disorder and autism disorder.

L. himself also said that he disagreed with the ruling. “Like the Pieter Baan Centre, I believe treatment must take place”, he said. This time, he was no longer dressed in the grey tracksuit from the prison in Vught as he was in January, but in jeans and a turquoise blue polo shirt. He told the judge he would fully cooperate with new psychological assessments. New assessments are needed anyway for an appeal, the Advocate General of the Public Prosecution Service explained, because such assessments are only valid for a year.

Ruling

Partly because of the new assessment, it will take some time before the appeal is heard on its substance. That will take place in November 2026. The ruling will be presented on Wednesday 16 December 2026.