DEN BOSCH - The court of appeal in Den Bosch yesterday sentenced 28-year-old Fredy T. from Rijen to sixteen years in prison for murder. He cut the throat of a 51-year-old Belgian woman in a cornfield in Chaam in August 2006.T. knew the victim from a café in Turnhout, where he was behind the bar. The woman had asked him for a ride to the Netherlands. In the car, the two got into an argument. The prosecution demanded eighteen years in prison two weeks ago on appeal, the same sentence the court imposed last June.

The man denies that he committed the murder. On appeal, he stated, as he did in court, that his then-girlfriend José van E. must have killed the victim. She was also a suspect in the case, but was acquitted by the court. The court attaches no value to that story. It points out that T. always made varying statements to the police. He identified several people as perpetrators.

T. has also sometimes stated that he killed the Belgian himself. He then pretended to the police how it happened. The way he did so indicates perpetrator knowledge, the court said.