Belgian skinhead gets life
2007-10-11 18:24
Brussels - A 19-year-old was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for killing two people and wounding a third during a racist, hate-fuelled shooting spree through the heart of Antwerp in 2006.
A jury gave Hans van Themsche the maximum sentence of life for the murders of a black woman and the white toddler she was babysitting and for wounding a woman of Turkish descent as he prowled the city centre with a semi-automatic shotgun.
The 12-person jury had convicted him late on Wednesday of racially motivated murder and attempted murder, rejecting a defence argument that Van Themsche had a mental ailment.
"He deserves to pay for the crimes he committed and I hope this will set an example for all those who are racist," said Demba Modibo, uncle of the Malian babysitter, Oulematou Niangadou, killed in the attack.
"They must change. There is no place for them in the 21st century."
'I need psychological help'
Van Themsche - who blamed blacks and other minorities for teasing him during his elementary school years - acknowledged his guilt but said he could not be held responsible because he was of unsound mind.
"I know what I did was wrong, wrong ... I want professional help. I need to have psychological help," Van Themsche had told the court.
Prosecutors called Van Themsche a weapons and violence junkie obsessed with revenge who wanted to kill some five to 10 people during an apparent suicidal rampage along the cobble-stoned streets of Antwerp's historic downtown.
Officers eventually shot and wounded Van Themsche after he killed Niangadou, 24, and the 2-year-old toddler, Luna Drowart.
"It is the first time in Belgium that a murderer has also been convicted of racism," said Jos Vander Velpen, a lawyer for Songul Koc, the woman seriously injured in the shooting spree. "I hope it will be the last time."
The shootings unleashed a public outcry against racist violence. Around 20 000 people took to the streets of Antwerp two weeks after the shootings to show solidarity with minorities across Belgium, and to ease ethnic tensions in the city, which for years has struggled to keep peace among its ethnic communities.
- AP