THE HAGUE, Wednesday - A court in Assen sentenced a 22-year-old suspect to an eight-year prison sentence for stabbing to death a 25-year-old man in his home in Emmen.

The two men supposedly fought about money. A struggle that preceded the stabbing was too short to speak of premeditation, according to the judge, who therefore only considered manslaughter as proven. The Public Prosecutor, who did consider murder proven, had demanded 10 years in prison plus forced psychiatric treatment for an unspecified period (TBS).

Behavioural experts of the Pieter Baan Center (PBC) ascertained that the perpetrator was schizophrenic. They could not however ascertain whether he was psychotic during the actual stabbing. Therefore the judge deemed it unnecessary to impose TBS.