Dutch prosecutors want life sentence for the tram terrorist Gokmen Tanis

Dutch prosecutors on Thursday asked judges to hand down a life sentence against a man who admitted to gunning down four people in a tram in the central city of Utrecht last year.

The man, identified only as Gokmen Tanis by the Dutch courts, has admitted to the March 18 massacre, which prosecutors said was a terror attack.

Four people – a woman aged 19 and three men aged 28, 49 and 74 – died in the onslaught, the worst of its kind in the Netherlands which up to then had been spared the large-scale terror attacks that have rocked its European neighbours.

Gokmen Tanis’s “total lack of remorse shows that there is a massive chance that he might commit a similar deed in the future”, prosecutors said in a statement.

“Taking everything into account, the only possible option is a life sentence,” prosecutors said.

Earlier this week, victims of the attack told the court of the heartbreak and sorrow they suffered.

The hearing was interrupted several times when Gokmen Tanis spat at his lawyer, made obscene gestures at the judges, and then provoked one of the victims as she gave her testimony.

An unidentified young woman told the accused “Gokmen, you have not defeated me”, according to Dutch media reports, to which he replied “It’s a pity”.

The hearing will continue but a final judgement is not expected for several weeks.

Source: Free Malaysia Today