Woman (69) strangled by her son at her home on Planciusstraat

At the end of October 2013 a 69-year-old woman was found dead at her home on Planciusstraat in central Amsterdam. Prosecutors accused her son Michel L., then 29, of killing her intentionally and with premeditation by squeezing her throat. L. argued that his mother no longer wanted to live and that he had merely helped her to die. On 10 July 2014 the Amsterdam court rejected that defence: this was not assisted suicide, and it found it proven that he had killed his mother. At the same time the court held that he had been entirely without criminal responsibility at the time. It therefore discharged him from all prosecution; no sentence followed and the case was disposed of by way of a measure.