A 20-year-old Amsterdam man stood trial for the first time today in a pro forma hearing for seven serious sex offenses. He is suspected of assaulting, raping and extorting six girls and young women in the period from 2021 to 2023. This often occurred in public places, such as in the restroom of a movie theater and a café. One victim was under the age of 16 at the time.
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM), Amsterdam suspect Hicham A. operated according to a set pattern. He was seventeen years old when he allegedly interfered with a girl on a toilet. His approach was very coercive, also in the years that followed, the prosecution says. "This suspect approaches girls on the street, mostly Muslim girls, young girls, girls with little sexual experience. He wants to meet up with them and he takes them somewhere, in many cases to a movie theater. They also often go to eat at MacDonalds and then he apparently wants to have sex with them."
"If you don't cooperate, I'll tell your family."
A. then also forces the girls to pay him money. This often involves amounts of several hundred euros and in one case even two thousand euros. OM: "He actually uses sex as a means to force them to pay money to them by holding out the prospect that if you don't cooperate, I will tell your family. And of course the girls don't want that."
In several cases, the sex between A. and his victims took place in a movie theater restroom or in the movie theater itself. But according to Justin Kötter, the young suspect's lawyer, there was no coercion involved. "It is now said: your client approached several ladies, but if you look at the documents, you see something else. Then you also see that these ladies approached my client while my client did not seek contact at all.
The young age of the victims also indicates mutual consent, according to Kötters. "My client is a very young boy himself and in some of the acts he was a minor himself, so we really do see that differently.
In several cases, victims did not report A's sexual assault, rape and extortion until years later. But that does not diminish the seriousness of the reports, says Boes Hogewind of the Prosecutor's Office: "We see a pattern. And shame or denial, there are many reasons why reports are made late."
The suspect is being examined by both a psychologist and a psychiatrist and remains in custody for the time being. The next hearing is Dec. 12.
