Dentention for ‘Facebook murder’ teen

A 15-year-old Dutch boy has been sentenced to a year in juvenile detention for stabbing to death a girl whose Facebook posts reportedly led to a contract for her killing.

The case, known in the Netherlands as the “Facebook murder”, caused widespread debate about the role of social media in violent crime.

The court yesterday said the boy did not know the victim and had murdered her “at the request or instructions of others”.

Dutch media said the victim, also 15 and named in court documents as Winsie, had argued for weeks with two friends on the social networking site before they allegedly asked the defendant – who was 14 at the time – to kill her. He was offered €1,000.

“I am not happy with one year for my daughter’s life,” her father said outside the courthouse. “But that’s what the law book says. We were powerless and so were the authorities.”