PHILIPSBURG–A 21-year-old woman was sentenced Wednesday in absentia to a conditional fine, on one year’s probation, for participating in a fight during a girls’ night out on January 28.
The woman did not hear the Judge pronounce the verdict as she is currently pursuing an education in hotel management in The Hague.
The circumstances of the fight remained somewhat unclear. The victim had told the police that she could not see who had stabbed her between the legs with what could have been a pair of scissors.
The young woman had said she was hit in the face while she was urinating behind some cars in the parking lot of Casa Blanca in Oyster Pond. She denied she had stabbed the victim, but admitted she had punched back.
Based on witness statements, the Prosecutor considered mistreatment proven but found no evidence of stabbing and of self- defence. He called on the Court to impose a NAf. 600 fine.
Attorney-at-law Safira Ibrahim agreed with the Prosecutor that there was a lack of evidence to consider stabbing proven. She said a group of five young women had become involved in fights at Defiance Club and at Casa Blanca, but said her client had not played a role in these and had only wanted to break up the fight at the parking lot.
She said her client had not been wearing any underwear that night, which would have made it very difficult for her to hide a knife or any other pointed weapon.
The lawyer said it was “remarkable” that only her client had been summoned to appear in Court and not any of the other fighters. According to the lawyer, her client had been a Voluntary Corps St. Maarten trainee at the time and was forced to leave directly after the incident. “That was very unfortunate and feels like a double punishment,” said Ibrahim.
Considering that her client does not have a criminal record she called on the Court to impose a conditional sentence instead of a fine.
The Judge agreed that the situation that night had been “unclear” and found the defendant not guilty of mistreatment with a weapon. Maltreatment in itself was found proven, but the defendant should not be troubled too much by what the Judge described as a “sin of her youth.”
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/79619-conditional-fine-for-girls-night-out-fight
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