The medical student who shot dead three people in a rampage in Rotterdam in September 2023 should be jailed for 30 years, followed by compulsory psychiatric treatment, the public prosecution department said on Thursday.

Fouad L, 33, has been charged with killing 43-year-old lecturer Jurgen Damen and setting fire to a classroom at the Erasmus Medical Centre in October.

L is also alleged to have shot dead his 39-year-old neighbour and her daughter at their home on Herman Dullaertplein and set fire to his own home shortly beforehand.

At this week’s court hearings L said he had originally planned to kill several students at the same time but reasoned with himself to keep casualties to a minimum when he took a loaded gun into the university.

L said he was filled with an “uncontrollable rage” after the university prevented him sitting his medical exams because he refused undergo a psychological assessment.

He told the court he had dreamed since the age of five of becoming a doctor, adding: “I’m convinced I could have been a great doctor, but it all went wrong.”

The public prosecution service had written to the university hospital warning them about L’s “concerning” and potentially psychotic behaviour in the weeks before the shooting. L was ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination, but failed to comply.

He is believed to have targeted his neighbour after she reported him to the housing association for mistreating his pets, which resulted in a conviction for animal cruelty in 2021.

The prosecution department said a life sentence would be inappropriate because it does not include the option of psychiatric treatment and L could be released after 25 years.

Given the man’s psychiatric problems and the risk of reoffending “a long jail term and psychiatric treatment is the best way of protecting society,” the department said.