Prosecutor calls for 25-year prison sentence in murder of Amsterdam daycare center owner

DutchAmsterdam.nl — Public prosecutor Maaike Bienfait today called for a 25-year prison sentence for Nevzat K. (42), who is suspected of murdering Amsterdam daycare center owner Arzu Çakmakçi-Erbas in August, 2009.

According to the prosecutor statements by 55 witnesses, information from the suspect’s phone, bugged telephone conversations and other evidence conclusively establish that K. awaited for Erbas in the parking lot of day care center Moeders Schoot.

He watched Erbas lock up for the day and, the prosecutor claims, when she got ready to put something in the trunk of her car he approached her from behind, fatally wounding her with a meat cleaver.

Erbas was stabbed twenty times. The murder was witnessed by ten people.

In Turkey K. has earlier been sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for murder and aggravated assualt.

Police initially thought K. and Erbas did not know each other, but investigation has shown that he drank coffee with Erbas at the daycare center a week before her murder. According to daycare workers it was a ‘grim’ visit.

The motive behind the murder is not yet known.

In court the suspect has appealed to his right to remain silent.

Possible motives include a so-called ‘honor killing.’ Investigators learned that Erbas had a three-year long extramarital affair with K.’s nephew — a business partner with whom she ran a construction company.

K. reportedly told an investigator that such a relationship would not be allowed in Turkey.

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