Bio

Cevdet Yılmaz was born on 21 February 1956 in Boğazlıyan. He is of Turkish origin.

He later became a naturalized Dutch citizen and his name is sometimes written as Cevdet Yilmaz. He has been referred to by the nickname "Ted the Turk."

Murder Story

Cevdet Yılmaz, naturalized as Cevdet Yilmaz, was born on 21 February 1956 in Boğazlıyan. He was nicknamed "Ted the Turk." He is responsible for a six-fold murder in 1983 at the café 't Koetsiertje in Delft. His motives were never officially explained. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and was pardoned in 2021.

The café 't Koetsiertje was run by Hans de Hoog. It was a hangout mainly for street kids. On 5 April 1983 the potential buyer, flower merchant Gerard Sneekes, visited the café with his wife Tonie and daughter Carmen, age 12. At a quarter to nine in the evening the police received a call: "There's shooting at 't Koetsiertje." When the police arrived, six of the eighteen café patrons were dead and four were seriously injured. Survivors reported that a man of Turkish descent was the shooter.

The café stood on the corner of Van Leeuwenhoeksingel and Houttuinen. The buildings were later demolished for the Delft railway tunnel. In 2009 the buildings were painted Delft Blue before demolition.

A few days after the shooting, Cevdet Yılmaz was arrested. According to survivors, he allegedly got into a fight with Ton Smits. Yılmaz had just become a Dutch citizen. Smits allegedly said to him, "You may have a Dutch passport, but you are and will always be a bloody Turk." Smits then allegedly punched Yılmaz, who fell to the ground. Other regulars reportedly laughed at him. Yılmaz then allegedly left the café and returned twelve minutes later. He opened fire. He fired twelve bullets, ten of which hit. He took about half a minute to do this and then calmly left the café. The motive for the murders was never officially established.

In March 1984 Yılmaz and his lawyer sought a sentence of compulsory psychiatric treatment on the grounds of mental illness. The lawyer said Yılmaz had been shooting "like a mad dog." The judge agreed with the prosecutor, who argued Yılmaz had shot calmly and in a calculated way. The judge said, "This looks more like an execution than a mad fight." Cevdet Yılmaz was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Until 2001 Yılmaz was detained at the IJssel Penitentiary in Krimpen aan den IJssel. From 2001 he was held in the Van der Hoeven Clinic in Utrecht. He refused to discuss his actions.

In August 2009 there was a commotion because the institution where Yılmaz stayed regularly granted him supervised leave. It turned out he had started a family during these leaves. In December 2009 Minister Hirsch Ballin and State Secretary Albayrak decided to revoke the leave. In 2010 an appeals committee ruled that revoking the leave was unlawful and that the leave should be reinstated. In September 2011 the court in The Hague ruled that Yılmaz would no longer be allowed unescorted leave. In December 2011 the court of appeal ruled that the refusal of further unescorted leave was not unlawful but that the state must seriously balance the interests in later requests.

On 15 April 2014 State Secretary Fred Teeven announced his intention to postpone a decision on a renewed request for six months. On 28 April 2014 the court in The Hague again rejected the request for unescorted leave. The court ordered the State to make a decision by 20 May 2014 under penalty of a fine. On 10 July 2014 the court in The Hague ruled the state must cooperate with unsupervised leave because it had itself requested TBS treatment for Yılmaz in 2001. Teeven announced he would not appeal that ruling.

A request for clemency was filed in April 2019. On 5 September 2019 Minister for Legal Protection Sander Dekker rejected the request for clemency, saying a pardon would be too shocking to society. In late December 2019 Yılmaz's lawyer filed a preliminary injunction because the reasons for the rejection were seen as insufficient. The Supreme Court ruled that a judge must assess whether Minister Dekker had sufficiently substantiated his decision. Yılmaz said he felt he deserved a pardon so he could be a free man again and return to Turkey with his wife. In January 2021 Minister Dekker decided to grant a pardon after the legal options to reject it had been exhausted.