The trial began on 29 May 2013 in
Lelystad. On 17 June 2013, six teenage players, who had been 15–16 years old at the time of the incident, and the 50-year-old father of one of the players were convicted of
manslaughter. El-Hasan D., the father, was sentenced to six years in prison; five of the teenagers to the maximum of two years in youth detention, six months suspended; and one, the man's son, to one year, two months suspended. An additional teenager, aged 15, was found innocent of manslaughter and sentenced to 30 days, 17 suspended, for assault on a goalkeeper. In addition, the court sentenced those convicted to 58,000 euro in damages, of which 25,000 euro constituted shock damages for the youngest son witnessing the manslaughter, and the remainder was intended to compensate Nieuwenhuizen's sons for the partial loss of financial support by their parents. The defendants had argued that Nieuwenhuizen's death was due to a medical condition known as segmental mediolytic arteriopathy, with testimony by a British forensic pathologist, Christopher Milroy, who performed an
autopsy on the body. The court however found it proven that the death resulted from the injuries suffered from the attack, with the judge explaining that the assailants caused an indescribable amount of suffering. Upon appeal, the court in
Leeuwarden ruled on 19 December 2013 that the sentence of one player should be slightly reduced, but that all the other sentences were just and should be upheld. On 26 October 2015, the disciplinary committee found that the usual maximum suspension of 10 months for youthful players was inappropriate because of the severity of the incident, and ruled that the players convicted of manslaughter should be banned from football for life, with the exception of one player, who showed obvious remorse and was therefore suspended from football for a period of 60 months (from 3 December 2012). By this time, only a small amount of the compensation to the victim's family that the seven convicts were jointly sentenced to pay had been paid. Because earlier deadlines for payment had passed, the amount to be paid had increased to 68,000 euro. If the full amount was not paid by 14 January 2017, they could be put under pressure to pay in two ways: each person could be incarcerated for up to one year (this would not lower the amount of compensation), and a bailiff could seize the property of each mature convict (in this case only El-Hasan D.). Because El-Hasan D. was on welfare so that he could not comply with payment arrangements and the other convicts also asserted they could not pay the damages, members of his family posted a letter on
Facebook in "a desperate call for [financial] help". In this public letter, El-Hasan D. was described as a "dear father" and "active football father", who "suffered a lot of injustice" because someone had to pay the price so that an international statement could be made about violence in football, causing him and his family to end up in a "nightmare". The authors of the letter assert that he "only tried to calm things down and to put an end to a trifle on the football field and that cost him dearly", and that he desperately tried to prove his innocence, but "that yielded nothing in this 'fair' country" because the judge refused to look at the specifics of the case. However, the court did consider El-Hasan D.'s share in the death of Nieuwenhuizen to be proven, and described in a reconstruction: "Especially the mature man kicked [Nieuwenhuizen] in the head. In an attempt to push the mature man away from [Nieuwenhuizen], the keeper of [SC Buitenboys], [Victim 2], ended up on the ground as well." Especially in response to the fierce accusations, many responded with outrage and anger, mainly on social media, and among others called the family of El-Hasan D. murderers and beggars, after which they removed the call to raise funds. ==Public response==