Man gets 10 years for plotting murder of Dutch right-wing politician

A court in The Hague on Monday sentenced a 27-year-old Pakistani man to 10 years in prison for preparing a terror attack on Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders.

The man traveled to the Netherlands in 2018 to kill Wilders. He had posted a video on Facebook in which he threatened the politician and called on others to help him. The reason for the attack was a cartoon contest about Prophet Mohammed which the right-wing populist Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Wilders wanted to organize. After the arrest of the Pakistani man, Wilders canceled the contest.

According to the judge, Wilders made use of his right to freedom of expression when organizing the competition. "That right also applies in particular to politicians who get involved in the public debate," the judge stated. "The man wanted to remove Wilders from this public debate so that he could no longer proclaim his message."

The defendant, who had travelled from France, wanted to carry out the attack in one of the buildings of the Dutch parliament in The Hague, therefore the court found the criminal offenses committed by the suspect particularly serious.

"If he had succeeded in his plan, he would not only have taken away the life of Wilders," the judge stated. "The attack would also have had an enormous impact on Dutch democratic society."