PHILIPSBURG--“Revolving door” burglar and repeat offender Archie Nicolaas Rijna was sentenced by the Court of First Instance on Wednesday, to a prison sentence of six months for a new series of crimes.
Calls made to the Court by attorney-at-law Geert Hatzmann to pardon his client as St. Maarten does not have the proper facilities to handle drug-related repeat offenders in, for instance, a Criminal Reception Centre for Addicts or an Institution for Systematic Offenders, such as those that exist in the Netherlands.
The Judge, however, did not favourably respond to the lawyer’s “test balloon” and declined to turn Rijna’s trial into a test case.
The Judge said it was a “pity” that St. Maarten does not have an institution for repeat offenders, but said the fact remained that the 54-year-old defendant “does not listen to reason and is responsible for his own actions. He knows what he is doing and he cannot get away with it,” the Judge said in rejecting the lawyer’s pleadings and in imposing the “common” sentence of six months.
The Judge, however, did not all have bad news as he said a forensic psychiatric clinic is being considered for all islands of the former Netherlands Antilles.
The Prosecutor and the Court both found Rijna, who was not present during the hearing, guilty of the attempted burglary at Family Dental Clinic in November 2018, and of breaking into several company cars on March 1, 2019, during which a car battery and a drill were among the stolen items.
He was also held for one of the persons who broke into a container belonging to a Hurricane Irma victim on February 5, 2019, and who made away with the container’s contents.
