Mohamed C. (74) killed by his son on his prayer mat on Derde Hugo de Grootstraat

Eighteen-year-old Mohamed C. had come from Morocco to the Netherlands a year earlier to finish his secondary schooling. He was the only one of the children still living with his 74-year-old father, who bore the same name, on Derde Hugo de Grootstraat in Amsterdam-West. On Wednesday 28 August 2013 the father was kneeling on his prayer mat when his son cut his throat; the pathologist later counted 27 stab wounds. The son left the flat and came back later with a friend, who fainted and ended up in hospital. There he was visited by an undercover officer posing as someone sent by the son. The friend then stated that the son had confessed the killing to him, adding: 'I had to do it, you know why.' Both were gay and the father would not accept it; he had tried to make his son straight through magic. In court the son maintained that an intruder must have killed his father. Prosecutors found that implausible, partly because the victim's posture on the prayer mat did not suggest it, the father was illiterate and spoke no English, and the home computer had been used to search for 'killing with a knife' and gay pornography. The prosecution demanded fifteen years. On 31 March 2016 the Amsterdam court imposed twelve: it did not find murder, with a premeditated plan, proven.