Food delivery worker gets into a dispute, stabbed to death

The 29-year-old Polish food delivery worker Roman Szymczyk was stabbed to death during the night of 20 November 2020 on Sara Burgerhartstraat in Amsterdam-West, near Dutchies Hostel in Bos en Lommer. Around 12:45 a.m., police received a report of a fight. Officers found Roman on the street with a stab wound; emergency services tried to resuscitate him, but he died at the scene. The suspect, also 29-year-old Haru T., fled after the stabbing in the direction of Amsterdam Sloterdijk station and then took a train to Zwolle, where he was arrested later that morning. Roman Szymczyk and Haru T. were both staying at the hostel and both worked as food delivery workers. According to reports, the conflict began after Roman had allegedly been drunk that evening and behaved inappropriately toward a woman, touching her ears and thighs against her will. Haru T. objected to this, after which the discussion moved outside near the hostel entrance and turned into a fight. During the confrontation, both men exchanged blows. At one point, Haru T. stabbed Roman in the chest with a knife of about 19 centimetres, after which Roman died shortly afterward. Haru T. claimed self-defence, but the court rejected that argument, ruling that there was no situation in which he had to defend himself; according to the court, there had been a fight, but Haru T. had started it. Psychiatric and psychological examinations, including by experts from the Pieter Baan Centre, found that Haru T. had a personality disorder, but no link was established between that disorder and the stabbing. He was therefore not considered to have diminished responsibility. On 5 November 2021, the court sentenced Haru T. to eight years in prison for stabbing Roman Szymczyk to death and also awarded more than €47,000 in compensation to the victim’s relatives. The appeal added two years. On 21 December 2023 the Amsterdam court of appeal rejected the pleas of self-defence and excessive self-defence - finding that Haru T. had started the fight himself - and sentenced him, as a first offender, to ten years.