PHILIPSBURG--A 35-year-old man was sentenced to serve four years in jail on Wednesday for attempted manslaughter and infliction of severe mistreatment in an attack with a machete.
Nathanael Alberto Camacho Acosta, nicknamed “Bolita,” had been detained before the verdict was delivered and was told through a translator that although he claimed self-defence, this was not believed to be true. He is allowed to appeal within four days.
In trial, Prosecutor Karola van Nie had said that she found attempted manslaughter proven, based on the witness’ statements and the injuries. She also said the defendant had escaped and could not be found by the police for a considerable time. Based on a psychologist’s report Van Nie said chances were high that the defendant would commit similar crimes in the future.
Acosta had been charged with cutting a Spanish-speaking man, who had come to his door and accused him of having assaulted his girlfriend. The victim was cut to his neck and wrist in the incident which occurred in the vicinity of Peking Supermarket on Welfare Road, on July 29, 2013.
The victim was bleeding heavily and sustained a deep cut to the left side of his neck and also a cut to his wrist while attempting to ward off a blow. He spent a week at the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit and is still not fully recovered.
The victim is scarred for life and cannot properly use several of his fingers, which made him lose his job it had been stated during the trial.
Acosta had denied the allegations and provided differing statements to the police and the Judge of Instruction, claiming he was attacked by the victim first.
He had denied every involvement and said the allegations were fabrications of a police officer, who had also expelled his girlfriend to the Dominican Republic. He had denied knowing the victim who is of Jamaican descent. The man had recognised Acosta as his assailant from a photograph.
The language issue for Acosta, who is from the Dominican Republic and did not speak English or Dutch, was one point previously made by his attorney Geert Hatzmann, who had said that Spanish-speaking persons are questioned in their mother tongue, whereas the reports of interrogations are invariably written in Dutch, and that the defence was put at a disadvantage without a proper and reliable translation.
Attorney Hatzmann called for a lower sentence when the Prosecutor demanded four years on August 20, and also made a plea for the introduction of audio-visual recordings of interrogations, which he said would contribute to finding the truth and also to a fair trial.
Hatzmann had also been critical of the damning psychologist’s report, and had pointed out that more than two years had passed since the incident. He had said there was no chance of his client committing another crime in St. Maarten as the illegal resident would be expelled to the Dominican Republic.
