On Monday, the Public Prosecutor (OM) requested 27 months of imprisonment against a 45-year-old man in the Rotterdam court. On January 5, 2019, he threw his then-one-year-old son from the first floor of an apartment in Ridderkerk.
Mohamed El K. would also strangle the boy until he stopped moving. According to the prosecutor, the fact that the boy, as far as is known, did not suffer permanent injuries from a fall of at least 4 meters is “a matter of luck”.
That evening, the residents of the Fresiastraat apartment heard hysterical screams from the boy’s mother. Several witnesses saw how a man and a woman were on the gallery and how the woman rushed downstairs. One floor down there was something in the grass. That turned out to be the baby.
El K. denies that he was the one who hurt the child. According to him, his wife was the aggressor in the relationship and he was the one being mistreated. “I was afraid of her,” the man told the court. During previous sessions, it emerged that the Public Prosecutor’s Office also suspected him of abusing his then wife. Now an acquittal has been requested for lack of evidence.
The man’s lawyer says it’s unclear what exactly happened. According to him, other scenarios are also possible, such as the woman throwing the baby or the child falling herself. There is not enough evidence that the baby was strangled. “Then follows the acquittal,” he said.
The relationship between El K. and his former partner would have been turbulent according to the lawyer. “It wasn’t a good wedding. If I can believe my client, it was hell.” El K. says her ex threatened to send him back to Morocco, which she could have done because he could stay in the Netherlands through her.
The court will rule on the case on September 26.
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