Icon: enlarge
The secluded farm in Ruinerwold (archive image)
Photo: Wilbert Bijzitter / EPA-EFE / REX
In the case of the apparently isolated family on a farm in the northeast of the Netherlands, the public prosecutor wants to close the case against the father.
The health of Gerrit Jan van Ds makes a fair trial impossible, said the authority.
He has brain damage after a severe stroke and is therefore not capable of litigation.
The 68-year-old is said to have terrorized his nine children and also abused some of them.
He and six of them lived in complete isolation for nine years on a farm in the village of Ruinerwold in the Netherlands.
He is accused of deprivation of liberty and sexual abuse.
A court will decide on the termination of the proceedings on March 4th.
For some of today's adult children, this is almost unbearable.
The four elders said in a statement to the court that they had suffered from his psychological terror for years.
They described "indescribable suffering".
The father kept the children in his power through a system of psychological pressure and violence.
"The constant fear has occupied us for so many years"
The case came to light in October 2019.
A young man had asked for help in the village pub in Ruinerwold near the German border.
In a remote courtyard, the police made the harrowing discovery that made headlines around the world.
The family had lived there for nine years - the neighbors had never noticed anything, as it was called.
The father had apparently put together a kind of natural religion, as can be seen from dozens of videos.
The children write that isolation began in 1989.
The three elders were allowed to go to school, but otherwise all contact was forbidden.
"Otherwise we would be unclean," said my father.
Anyone who had contact with the outside world was punished.
They would have had to pray for days indoors and outdoors, whatever the weather.
"We were also to blame for our mother's death," they write.
The woman died in 2004.
"The constant fear occupied us for so many years."
According to the investigators, the defendant himself described many of the offenses in his diary and given the reasons for the chastisements and rape: the children were possessed by "evil spirits".
According to the prosecutor, the children are doing well under the circumstances.
However, the older ones are very concerned about their younger siblings.
They are still in the power of the father.
"For her he is still the chosen one." Should the father be released, everything would quickly be the same.
The Austrian Josef B. was also arrested with his father.
B. had rented the farm and fed the family, but rejects all allegations.
He will have to answer at a later date.
Icon: The mirror
bbr / dpa / AFP
