THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An asylum seeker in the Netherlands has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for raping a 17-year-old woman after attempting to strangle and drown her.
The rape in September led one local mayor to suggest a curfew for residents of a local asylum-seekers’ center. Bort Koelewijn, mayor of the northeastern town of Kampen, told a local television station last month that such a restriction should be considered to prevent similar attacks in the future.
The 33-year-old rapist was not identified Thursday, in line with Dutch privacy guidelines. Prosecutors said in a statement last month that he lived in an asylum-seekers’ center. Dutch media reported that he was originally from Eritrea.
The sentence was handed down by a court in the northeastern town of Zwolle.