Lucia de Berk Finally Cleared of Murder Charges

Finally, after six and a half years in prison, nurse Lucia de Berk was cleared of murder and attempted murder. In 2003, she had been convicted of seven counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder of children and elderly patients, and had been sentenced to life in prison.

The reasoning the court in The Hague, which originally sentenced her, was full of logical and statistical fallacies. First, it was claimed that the chance that all the patients who died in Ms. De Berk’s care, died incidentally while she was on duty, was 1 in 342 million. This “big number”, which turned out to be incorrect – the real chance of this many deaths occurring to one nurse in Lucia’s circumstances, is 1 in 44! – persisted through all the investigations, and blinded the judges to evidence Lucia was innocent. Secondly, only two crimes – one “murder” and one “attempted murder” – were said to be individually proven. In both cases, the evidence had been fabricated by the court. The other eight cases were said to have been proven because of the first two and a number of attacks on Ms. De Berk’s character.

Lucia may or may not have been mentally ill. It is a fact that she had a history of prostitution, and that she entered nursing school with a false high school diploma. It is also a fact that she was inconsistent in her reports on the actions she was accused of – but then again, everyone involved in this trial, displayed inconsistencies within their testimonies. All of these factors were used to create a very negative image of her, which is, of course, classist and ableist. In turn, this negative image was used to take vague statements, such as her admitting to a “compulsion” in her diary on the day one of the “victims” died, as evidence for an irresistable urge to kill. Note that, apparently, in Dutch, but not in English – and Ms. De Berk was educated in Canada -, “compulsion” has some associations with violence. Lucia’s real compulsion, apparently, was to lay tarot cards for her patients – something she indeed could have been fired for if caught, so it isn’t like she had no reason to hide this.

The court in Arnhem, which took on the trial after the Supreme Court had the case reopened in 2008, destroyed all arguments. Lucia was convicted of some offenses, such as the falsification of her high school diploma and stealing medications, but she was not punished for these. The head of the Public Prosecutor’s office apologized to her personally. In my opinion, this is not enough and Lucia de Berk ought to be compensated.

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Why I’m Hardly Affected by Hurricane Katrina

Yesterday, Dad asked me if I’d already come across a debate on the money for the Iraq war vs. money for Katrina victims issue. I said I hadn’t. In fact, Katrina to me seems like far away, unimportant and not interesting. I have no acquaintances in New Orleans or Mobile, AL or Mississippi as far as I know. I am less affected by Katrina than last year by Charley, Frances and Ivan, cause I did have acquaintances in Florida. On Thursday, I felt obligated to write to the ROP-support list asking if everyone was okay, but I don’t know if I wrote because the list was so quiet or because of Katrina.

I feel less affected than with the tsunami in the Indian Ocean last December. I attribute that greatly to the fact that I view the U.S. as a developed country, while the countries hit by the tsunami are in the third world. In fact, when I heard president Bush would accept foreign help in the disaster relief, I was surprised he’d even need it. Of course, the “accepting” part didn’t surprise me – I guess it’s a great shame to the Americans themselves that they can’t handle their own hurricanes. I don’t think so, but it’s still something interesting.

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Thoughts on the Tsunami in Asia

Hmmm, I seem like minister Remkes of Home Affairs, who had been on holiday in Thailand since boxing day and yet hasn’t visited the Dutch Tsunami victims in the hospitals yet. Except that the disaster as a whole is much larger than only Dutch victims. 150,000 people dead! That’s really sooo shocking! And millions of people are homeless and in immediate need. And epidemics will likely break out, if they haven’t yet. That will cost more lives. It’s sooo sad!!! And yet I still haven’t donated money to Giro number 555 (which the relief organisations have opened for the victims), but I plan to. There are so many events in support of the victims. Tomorrow, the radio stations are going to broadcast “Radio 555″, a programme to gather money for the disaster victims. It’s so sad that this needed to happen to poor countries like Sri Lanka. I don’t think they will be able to build up the country economically; that’ll take many years. Some folks from Sri Lanka, however, have said “positive” things, like that they hope that now the Singalese (or what is that group called in English?) and Tamil people will find more unity amongst each other. This anyway isn’t something that will pass easily; many people will need help from United Nations folk for many months and they’ll certainly need financial aid for years. And how will all the children and women who have lost their men that work for the family, survive? How will some even survive this week, with neither food nor water? It’s really horrible.

Astrid

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On Princess Juliana’s Death

Yesterday (Saturday) morning princess Juliana, queen Beatrix’s mother, died. She was 94-years-old and many people consider it to be in some ways good, cause she was severely demented. Juliana had already retired from queendom for six years when I was born, but from what I hear she was a very humane queen. Now I’ve never been really royalistic, but still. From what I hear on the news and what memories folks have she seemed to be a very “normal” queen, just like all the other Dutch folks. Only she was quite pacifistic, which wasn’t really good in the 1950s (Cold War), cause the government wasn’t either.

Juliana’ll be buried on March 30th in the New Church in Delft, where all royals are buried. Queen’s day and prince Friso’s marriage however can still go on, cause they’re after the period of familial mourning.

Dad immediately said: “So next Monday we’re going to have another minute of silence.” We had three minutes of silence for the Madrid terrorist attack victims, two for a teacher who was murdered on a school in The Hague and so forth and my Dad thinks we’re having way too many moments of silence due to disasters. He says that when he was in highschool, he’d experienced it once, and that was when Wilhelmina (Juliana’s mother, queen from 1898-1948) died. I to some extent agree with that, but yeah, when a folks were silent for a moment when Wilhelmina dieed in 1963, we should do so for Juliana’s death as well.

Astrid

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Thoughts on the Madrid Terrorist Attacks

It’s Madrid, ETA, international terrorism and the elections in Spain what we hear on the news all the time. Because Aznar blamed the ETA (Basque seperation movement) for the train attacks of last Thursday, while there seems to be great evidence that it’s Alquaeda, Aznar’s probably lost the elections. Most Spaniards were totally against the war on Iraq, while Aznar was one of Bush’s greatest followers. The critics say the attacks reminded Spain of their opinion and Aznar’s, so that they voted for the social-democratic party rather than Aznar’s conservatives. I totally condemn the terrorist attacks, but am happy with the outcome of the elections, because I’m a socialist.

Would it be by accident that the attacks come exactly two and a half years after the 9/11 WTC and Pentagon attacks? We’re gonna hold three minutes of silence at 12:00 PM again. In Spain, they had a quarter of silence last Friday to remember the attacks.

Everyone’s debating now whehter the Netherlands are in danger of terrorist attacks. I don’t think there’s a great chance: we have neither skyscrapers nor big cities. However… We do have the international court of justice and other such organisations… But would that be a reason for terrorists to attack our country? If they would, they’d either attack Schiphol or Rotterdam’s haven.

Oh for clarity’s sake: I completely condemn the attacks – no matter its influence on elections or terrorist attacks in the Netherlands – and feel really sorry for all the victims and their relatives.

Astrid

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