March 2010: The Public Ministry asks for non-guilty! ============================= Petition text. "The case of Lucia de Berk (life imprisonment in the Netherlands for 7 alleged murders and 3 alleged attempts) must be reopened as soon as possible." "De zaak Lucia de B. moet zo spoedig mogelijk worden heropend". Information. By signing, you are agreeing with the petition sponsor that the conviction is "unsafe" -- guilt was not established beyond reasonable doubt. You are welcome to your personal or your scientific opinion concerning guilt or innocence, but that is another matter. In November 2007, after the report of the three wise men, we submitted the "half-time" list of signees to Mr. Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Dutch Minister of Justice, and in December had it published in newspaper "NRC-Handelsblad". Since still no decision has been taken to reopen the case, the petition remains open, and will be published in the media again. Please add your profession in the comments field, if at all relevant to the case. Some of the first signees forget to do this. Signees 1 and 2 are professors of Mathematical Statistics, signee 4 is a professor of Medical Statistics. We started collecting signatures on June 17, 2007. The three wise men of committee Posthumus II, who had been studying the case for nearly a year, seemed to have difficulties coming to a conclusion and took their summer holidays before making their recommendation. At that time, the petition sponsor found this incomprehensible, both from a human and from a scientific point of view. However, always optimistic, he trusted that The Three Wise Men had indeed become convinced that there was a miscarriage of justice: the conviction was unsafe, since there is no proof "beyond reasonable doubt" that any crimes were committed at all, let alone by whom. The Three Wise Men would then still have their work cut out, to make their recommendation to the Public Prosecution Service (and from there to the Supreme Court) as water-tight as possible. With this petition he hoped to support a correct recommendation by the committee, which he saw as inevitable.

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