Gerard van der Kubbe (54) found dead in a burning home on Barbusselaan

Gerard van der Kubbe (54) lived alone in a flat on Barbusselaan in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. Neighbours described him as a somewhat eccentric man, but he was not isolated: he regularly visited the Salvation Army soup bus at Kadijksplein, where he sought the company of other men. He sometimes took young Polish men home with him. On Wednesday 5 October 2016 Van der Kubbe had his last contact with a social worker; at six in the evening he cancelled an appointment set for three o'clock. In the early hours of Thursday 6 October, at around four, an acquaintance visited him. When that visitor left, a young Polish man was present in the flat. That same Thursday evening, at around 22:20, fire broke out in the apartment. Firefighters carried Van der Kubbe out from the first floor and immediately began resuscitation, but he died. The fire flared up again during firefighting. At first it was assumed he had died in the fire; examination showed that he had already been killed by a crime beforehand, and that the fire had been set to destroy evidence. Police used the television programme Opsporing Verzocht to look for the young Polish man seen with Van der Kubbe at around four in the morning — explicitly not as a suspect, but as a potentially crucial witness to his final hours. On 22 December 2017 it was announced that a 29-year-old Polish man had been arrested. At that moment he was serving a sentence in his own country for another offence and could be surrendered to the Netherlands afterwards. The trial established that Van der Kubbe had met him on the street and offered him shelter; he stayed in the flat for several days. The defendant struck Van der Kubbe on the head with a bottle and then continued to kick and beat him. He pleaded self-defence and excessive self-defence — his defence argued that Van der Kubbe had made unwanted sexual advances — but both the district court and later the court of appeal rejected that plea. The arson with which he tried to destroy the evidence affected the whole block: the complex was evacuated, several apartments suffered fire and smoke damage, and some homes were uninhabitable for a long time. Residents suffered financial and psychological harm, and the defendant was ordered to pay them damages. On 31 May 2018 the district court in Amsterdam sentenced him to 13 years in prison for manslaughter and arson; the Public Prosecution Service had demanded sixteen. On appeal the Amsterdam court of appeal raised that sentence to 14 years on 19 March 2019. The court weighed heavily that he had been killed in his own home by someone he had given shelter to, and that in trying to evade responsibility he had knowingly risked harm to other residents. Van der Kubbe's brother explained movingly at the hearing what the loss meant to the family.