A criminal court in Amsterdam sentenced four perpetrators of a “Jew hunt” in November 2023 to prison terms ranging from 11 days to three months.
The four defendants were part of a group of as many as several hundred rioters who attacked Israeli supporters of the Maccabi Tel Aviv club after its match against local club Ajax on November 7.
Cenk D., considered one of the central figures in the attacks, was sentenced to three months incarceration, one month more than the public prosecutor’s office had asked for — an atypical occurrence. Three other defendants received lower sentences.
In a WhatsApp group called “Buurthuis 2,” or “Community Center 2,” Cenk D. had shared the location of Jewish soccer fans with 1,000 other members, calling on them to go on the attack: “A dead Jew is better than a living Jew.”
Cenk D. also sent pictures of Anne Frank, which the court considered downplaying the Holocaust, a criminal offense in the Netherlands.
Taxi driver Mounir M. was sentenced to six weeks, minus 26 days for time served during the investigation. Mounir M. used the same WhatsApp group to tell the rioters where they could find Jews and how to evade the police that night.
Kamal I., another taxi driver, received one month with the same deduction; prosecutors had asked for a year of jail time. However, even though Kamal I. had videos of some of the assaults on his phone, the court did not see enough proof to conclude that he had personally participated in the violence.
Mohammed B. was convicted of assault and received a sentence of 11 days. He will not have to go to prison, since the sentence is the same as the number of days he had already spent in jail. The mild sentence was given despite Mohammed B.’s previous record of violent offenses, and Dutch newspaper Het Parool wrote that Mohammed B. had been seen at other anti-Israel rallies, including one at the Amsterdam Central Train Station on the night before his sentencing.
Victor Loonstein, a lawyer for 35 of the Israeli victims, said the sentences were in line with Dutch guidelines. He noted, however, that the court took several ostensibly mitigating circumstances into account, such as the part Maccabi fans allegedly played in the violence, and in the cases of Palestinian suspects, their “trauma” since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
