Police in The Hague still hunting for man who stabbed three teens

Photo: Depositphotos.com
Photo: Depositphotos.com

Police in The Hague are still hunting the man who stabbed three teenagers in a busy shopping street on Friday night and have not yet released a description of the man they want to question.

The teenagers – a 13-year-old boy from The Hague, and two 15-year-old girls from Alphen aan den Rijn and Leiderdorp – were treated in hospital and released on Friday evening.

They did not know each other, police said, and appear to have been chosen at random.

Motive

‘All possible resources’ are being used in an effort to trace the attacker and police say they have no clue yet as to his motive.

The possibility that this was a terrorist attack is one of the options under consideration ‘but this is still unclear at the moment,’ the police statement said.

The man launched his attack outside the Hudson’s Bay department store, when the streets were crowded with Black Friday bargain hunters.

The police first issued a description of a man they wanted to question but later withdrew the report. They are still appealing for witnesses and mobile phone footage.

Meanwhile, Britain’s foreign office has included a report that there is an ‘ongoing police search in The Hague following an attack in the city on the evening of 29 November’ in its official travel advice for British nationals.

In May 2018, a Syrian man stabbed three people in the street in The Hague in an apparently random attack. This July he was sentenced to an indefinite term in a secure psychiatric unit.

The court said Malek F should not be jailed because he is completely unaccountable for his actions. He was also found not guilty of attempted murder and making terrorist threats.

And in February this year, police appealed for witnesses after a tall man with a strong English accent attacked two people at random with a knife. It is unclear if he has been caught.

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