A Syrian asylum seeker found guilty of sexually assaulting four 11-year-old girls in the swimming pool of a Center Parcs holiday resort in the Netherlands has been sentenced to 60 hours of community service.
A total of 10 young girls and women filed police reports concerning the behavior of the 29-year-old migrant who targeted and groped visitors of the swimming complex in Zandvoort on Feb. 19, 2023.
Hart van Nederland reported how some of the girls had their buttocks groped by the man, while others claimed the migrant had clamped his legs around their waists and pressed his genitals against their hips.
A Dutch court heard testimony from the victims and their families about the psychological effects the assaults had inflicted upon them, including from the mother of one 11-year-old girl who said her daughter still suffered considerable pain and suffering as a result of the incident, and now experiences anxiety attacks and refuses to leave the house on her own.
The man’s defense lawyer denied that any approach toward the girls was sexually motivated and claimed his client is homosexual — an increasingly common tactic for adult males arriving in Europe from predominantly Islamic countries to use due to the human rights protections afforded to them.
On the contrary, the Syrian national then claimed in mitigation that his wife and daughter were awaiting approval to come to the Netherlands from Turkey under family reunification laws and expressed his concern to the court that a conviction would harm his chances of being granted asylum.
Nonetheless, the asylum seeker was convicted by a Dutch court on Tuesday on four counts of sexual assault against a minor but will not spend time behind bars, despite the prosecution pushing for a custodial sentence of four months.
Instead, he was handed a suspended sentence, a two-year probation period, and ordered to undertake 60 hours of unpaid work.
When the news of the trial first hit the headlines last month, conservative politician Geert Wilders, whose Party for Freedom (PVV) party stormed to victory in last year’s general election in the Netherlands, called not for the man’s incarceration but his deportation from the country.
“If that is not a reason to immediately throw an asylum seeker out of the country, then our country is lost. Get rid of these kinds of people,” he posted on X.