Colombian drug dealer and his young girlfriend shot dead in a flat on Brentanostraat

On 2 January 2004 the 34-year-old Colombian drug dealer Diego Ortiz Rodriguez and his young Nicaraguan girlfriend Alejandra Saenz Silva were shot dead in a flat on Brentanostraat in the Venserpolder, Amsterdam-Zuidoost. The killer was 27-year-old Amir A., who worked for Ortiz Rodriguez as a bodyguard. He went to the flat with a loaded gun and shot his employer five times in the chest and abdomen; the woman was hit in the chest and the face. The case played out against a background of cocaine dealing. On 10 December 2004 the Amsterdam court convicted A. of murder and manslaughter and sentenced him to twenty years in prison; prosecutors had demanded life. The court found premeditation proven for the killing of Ortiz Rodriguez: A. had pocketed the gun before going to the flat. According to the annual lists of the time, three co-defendants received seven, two and five years. On 30 November 2007 the Amsterdam court of appeal again sentenced A. to twenty years.