De Gelder claims voices defence was lawyer’s idea

Kim De Gelder, the man charged with stabbing to death two babies at a nursery told a court yesterday that it had been his lawyer’s idea to tell investigators he had been driven by voices in his head, reports Reuters’ Robert-Jan Bartunek. De Gelder, 24, who is also accused of killing a nursery worker and, a week before the crèche attack, an elderly woman, admits the acts, leaving his trial to decide whether he is sane. “My lawyer wanted to get me committed. That’s why I kept saying that,” De Gelder said when asked by the judge whether there were voices in his head commanding him to kill. In January 2009, then 20-year-old De Gelder entered the Fabeltjesland (Fairytale Land) crèche in Dendermonde, 30km west of Brussels, and started slashing with a knife, killing six- and nine-month-old boys and a female member of staff. De Gelder, who is also accused of the attempted murder of 16 children and six carers, told the court in a rambling testimony that he had planned to kill, but changed his mind after walking through the nursery’s sliding door. However, a child lock had prevented him from getting out. “I wanted to get out and then I got into a panic and started stabbing,” he said. De Gelder also admitted killing a 72-year-old woman a week before the nursery attack. He posed as a water inspector to get the woman to let him into her house. “I felt bad but the compulsion was so great that I had to continue,” De Gelder said, adding that he had gone to a comedy show afterwards. Asked about a motive for the crimes, De Gelder said: “I had written it down, but my lawyer won’t let me say it. I will keep it until the end of the trial or maybe until a next trial.” De Gelder talked of a strained relationship with his parents, which became more and more difficult until he moved into his own apartment in October 2008. “My plans to kill people were created out of the desperation to get rid of my parents,” he told the court. De Gelder said he had visited a psychiatrist for the first time when he was 16 and later tried to commit suicide by lying on a railway track, but this failed as the train stopped in time. He also told the judge he never wanted to take medication. He described planning his acts carefully, including practising how to slit throats on a wooden cut-out in his apartment.