Five of the seven teenagers charged with kicking a football linesman to death should be jailed for 24 months, six months suspended, the public prosecution department told a court in Lelystad on Friday.

One youth who admitted kicking Richard Nieuwenhuizen faces 12 months and the seventh, who did not kick the linesman, 30 days.

The one adult, a 52-year-old man who is the father of one of the boys, should be jailed for six years, the public prosecutor said on the third day of the hearings.

Guilty

In his summing up, the prosecutor said seven of the eight defendants  should be considered jointly guilty of manslaughter.

‘And in that, it does not matter who exactly touched the linesman,’ he said. While there was no question the group deliberately wanted to kill him, the way they acted meant there was a chance he would die.

The prosecutor refused to comment on family demands for compensation, put by some sources at up to €350,000. That, he said, is a matter for the civil courts.

Evidence

On Wednesday and Thursday, the court tried to unravel what happened after the game between two junior teams in Almere. But contradictory statements made it impossible to work out exactly how the attack took place, RTL news reported.

Nieuwenhuizen collapsed several hours after being kicked and punched by members of the Nieuwe Sloten B team and died in hospital the next day.

Expert witnesses have also disputed the cause of death.