Prosecutor demands ten years over alleged rape in Zeist

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) demanded ten years in prison on Monday for a man from Georgia suspected of a violent rape in Zeist and two attempted rapes. The prosecutor said he acted "like a predator looking for his prey".

According to the OM, a woman was walking in the Zeisterbos woods on 15 August last year when the man approached her. The OM says he hit her in the face, making her fall, then dragged her further into the woods and raped her. It said he shouted several times in English that he would kill her.

Shortly before, he allegedly grabbed another woman and pulled her off her bike, the OM said. The OM says he put his hands over her mouth when she called for help, and ran off when she fell to the ground.

In court, the man said repeatedly that he remembers nothing. He said he had used drugs and alcohol that day: "I really don't know where I was and what I did." Experts at the Pieter Baan Centrum, which examined him, said there are no major problems with his memory. When the judge asked him one last time, he answered: "I can't remember it."

A lawyer read a statement on behalf of the victims. The woman the OM says was raped said she faced "pure fear of death".

After the two women reported the attacks to the police and the man's photo was circulated, a third woman came forward. She said he had harassed her on 4 August in Bunschoten, his home town. The man was arrested at home a week after the alleged rape.