2 Pak nationals accused of calling for assassination of Dutch far-right leader
Geert Wilders said he expects to be extradited, convicted and sent to prison
The Hague:
Dutch prosecutors on Wednesday said they are prosecuting two Pakistani nationals on charges of inciting the killing of anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders and seeking legal help from Islamabad in the case.
Judges last September sentenced Pakistani cricketer Khalid Latif to 12 years in prison for urging people to kill Wilders after the flamboyant lawmaker sought to arrange a competition for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
The Public Prosecution Service said it was prosecuting two Pakistani nationals, a 55-year-old religious leader and a 29-year-old political leader, “who have called on their followers to assassinate a Dutch member of parliament.”
“This was done during meetings and through video and text messages on social media,” it said in a statement.
The religious leader reportedly called for Wilders’ assassination because his followers “will be rewarded in the afterlife”, while the political leader said that since Latif’s conviction it would be “up to his own followers to carry out the task”. is dependent”.
Both men will be tried on September 2 in a highly secure court near Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
Dutch authorities have sought legal assistance from Islamabad to interrogate the suspects and issue summons to appear in court.
However, no treaty exists with Pakistan for mutual legal assistance and it seems unlikely that the two men will ever appear in the dock.
Geert Wilders posted the two names on X, formerly Twitter, but prosecutors did not release the names of the suspects for privacy reasons.
The names could not be independently confirmed by AFP.
“I hope he is extradited, convicted and sent to prison!” Wilders said.
Dutch authorities tried in vain to interrogate Latif on the matter and requested legal assistance from Pakistan, but to no avail.
Wilders canceled the cartoon competition after protests broke out in Pakistan and he received death threats. He has been under 24-hour government security since 2004.
In the Netherlands, plans to hold the competition were widely criticized by politicians, local media and ordinary citizens, with the idea being described as unnecessarily offending Muslims.
But calls to kill Wilders appeared to be resonating, with a Pakistani man sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2019 for plotting to murder him in the wake of the canceled competition.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)