Monthly Archives: April 2014

Armenian asylum seeker commits suicide in Netherlands

A week and a half ago, a 30-year-old Armenian asylum seeker committed suicide in the Netherlands, reports NRC.

He killed himself in the woods near AZC Schalkhaar, the asylum-seeker centre where he was staying.

The man arrived in the Netherlands in mid-December 2013. He has serious psychiatric problems, suffering from delusions,  but had not seen a psychiatrist since he arrived in the country, because the IND wanted to deport him to Germany under the Dublin arrangements.

Before he fled to the Netherlands, the man had crushed his nose as he though that the Armenian secret service had placed a listening device inside it. He had also made a number of suicide threats in the Netherlands before he killed himself, says his lawyer.

The IND had planned to deport him to Germany as he had previously claimed asylum there. According to his lawyer, heleft Germany because his delusions became too strong there, and he had felt calmer in the Netherlands.

The man’s lawyer had appealed against the IND’s decision. The appeal hearing at the end of March agreed with the lawyer,  but the  IND had put in an appeal against this decision.

Opposition parties wants the Dutch Minister for Safety and Justice (sic), Fred Teeven, to answer questions about the suicide in parliament.

Last year Russian Aleksandr Dolmatov, whose asylum claim had been rejected, committed suicide in his cell in a migrant prison in the Netherlands.