An Amsterdam court has acquitted Querenshyo T. of involvement in explosive attacks on two De Pizzabakkers branches while sentencing him to eight months in prison for possessing a firearm.
Police arrested him last year after his DNA was found on a plastic bottle that exploded at the chain’s outlet on Plantage Kerklaan.
The same DNA later turned up on a backpack, another plastic bottle, and a powerful illegal firework known as a cobra.
A 14-year-old boy had attached those items to the door of a second De Pizzabakkers location on the same street the following day.
Surveillance prevents blast
Officers stopped the second device from exploding.
Mayor Femke Halsema had ordered camera surveillance on the street the night before, and the boy was spotted on the footage.
The Public Prosecution Service argued that T. had manufactured the explosives for both the completed attack and the foiled attempt, even if he did not place them himself.
At the time he lived in a supervised housing project.
DNA traces examined
T. told the court he might have handled the objects at some point but denied any further role.
One of his housemates had previously been convicted for setting off an explosive.
Judges accepted that the DNA could suggest he was linked to both incidents at the restaurants.
They ruled, however, that the traces could not be treated as certain perpetrator evidence.
Shared home creates doubt
It was impossible to establish when, under what conditions, or by what action his DNA ended up on the backpack, bottle cap, and cobra.
T. shared the home with two others and visitors regularly came by, which offered a plausible innocent explanation for the material.
On that basis the court cleared him of co-perpetrating the attacks on De Pizzabakkers.
He has a lengthy criminal record and previously received a youth TBS order.
Gun found in search
A house search uncovered a weapon.
T. said he had agreed to store it for someone else for only a few tens of euros.
The court convicted him on the weapons charge alone and imposed eight months’ imprisonment.
The 14-year-old who hung the second device earlier received 180 days of youth detention, of which 111 days were suspended.
A 20-year-old who instructed the boy was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
Attacks still unsolved
Almost a year later it remains unclear who organized the series of attacks on the De Pizzabakkers locations.
No main suspect has ever been arrested.
The incidents prompted extra security on Plantage Kerklaan and temporary closures linked to the mayor’s response measures.
