More than two decades after the murder of eleven-year-old Nicky Verstappen in the vicinity of the German-Dutch border, the alleged perpetrator faces a court for the first time. The 55-year-old Jos B. protested his innocence in Maastricht. He did not sexually abuse the boy and did not kill him. "I did not do it," the Dutch radio quoted the man.
The public prosecutor's office first commented on the state of the investigation at the meeting. The main trial will probably start only in the fall of 2019. Nicky Verstappen disappeared in August 1998 in Brunssummerheide in the southeast of the Netherlands during a summer camp. A day later his body was found, the Dutch boy had been sexually abused.
For a long time there was no trace of a culprit. It was only this summer that Jos B. was arrested in Spain and then sent to the Netherlands. Investigators had tracked him down after a mass genetic test. At the body of Nicky 17 traces had been discovered, which are to all agree with the DNA of the defendant. The man had been questioned shortly after the crime because he had been seen at the scene.