DIE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – Prosecutors on Thursday asked a Dutch court to drop the case against a 68-year-old father who is accused of isolating and abusing his own children. farmhouse.
The case attracted worldwide attention in 2019 when police discovered the father with six of his children in a hidden room in the farmhouse in the east of the Netherlands after one boy sounded the alarm.
At a pre-trial hearing in January last year, prosecutors portrayed the father as a deeply religious man who saw his family as ‘chosen by God’ and did everything in his power – including physical beatings and other punishments – to prevent them from succumbing to what he regarded as malicious influences from outside. .
Prosecutors now say the man, identified only under Dutch privacy rules as Gerrit Jan van D., was largely disabled by a stroke in 2016. The prosecution would violate his right to a fair trial, as he did not in able to defend himself, prosecutors said.
While judges asked to stop the case, prosecutors said their efforts and those of the police were a useful goal to free the family.
“We got the younger children out of an unsafe, bizarre situation. And in the course of the investigation, we gave them something they had not had before: a real existence in our society through their registration in the personal register, but more importantly: freedom of choice. ‘
The six children kept on the farm are now all young adults. Three older brothers and sisters left the family’s isolated life earlier. Their mother died in 2004.
Prosecutors acknowledged that their decision would be difficult for the children who escaped the isolation, and told investigators “about terrible things they endure.”
Prosecutors said that while the case against the father is over, all the children are free to choose their own future, even if it means returning to isolation with their sick father.
“In the last 18 months, the children have come to know our society, to be able to participate in it and to receive spiritual and medical care,” they said. “If they, now that they could taste the alternative, still choose to want to live in isolation with their father again, to practice their faith … it is their choice.”