Posted on 07/26/2005 4:45:59 AM PDT by nuconvert
Court Sentences Killer of Dutch Filmmaker
By ANTHONY DEUTSCH,/ Associated Press Writer
A Dutch court sentenced the killer of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh to life in prison Tuesday, the harshest sentence possible for a murder that heightened ethnic tensions and raised concerns about homegrown Islamic terrorism.
Mohammed Bouyeri, 27, had mounted no defense at his two-day trial earlier this month for the Nov. 2 slaying of Van Gogh, whom he accused of insulting Islam, and told the court he would do it again if given the chance.
Presiding judge Udo Willem Bentinck said life in prison was the only fitting punishment for a crime that sought to undermine Dutch democracy and the political system. He said the three-judge panel had concluded there was no possibility for Bouyeri to return to society, citing his lack of remorse.
Bouyeri, wearing a black and white checkered headscarf, showed no emotion as he shook his lawyer's hand following the verdict. He had earlier told the court he had intended to die in the action and become a martyr for his faith.
Bouyeri has two weeks if he wants to lodge an appeal, but that appeared unlikely.
He was convicted of the murder, described in the judgment as a terrorist attack, the attempted murder of bystanders and police officers, illegal possession of firearms and of impeding the work of a member of parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whom he had threatened to kill in a letter impaled in Van Gogh's chest.
The judgment said Bouyeri had shown "a complete disregard for human life." Van Gogh was "butchered mercilessly," it said, and it was "a miracle that only two bystanders were hit by stray bullets."
Bouyeri ambushed the filmmaker on an Amsterdam street, shot him repeatedly, stabbed him and slit his throat before thrusting his manifesto into his chest on the point of a knife.
Some witnesses said he was so calm "it looked like he was out walking his dog," the judge said, describing the murder and the subsequent shootout with police.
In his earlier court appearance, Bouyeri said he had acted in the name of Islam and felt no pain for Van Gogh's family. "What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith," he told the court. "I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet."
Bouyeri is the son of Moroccan immigrants but was raised and educated in the Netherlands.
Geert Wilders, a populist politician who campaigns for tighter limits on immigration, wrote in an open letter to the killer published Tuesday in the Algemeen Dagblad daily that Bouyeri felt "blind hatred for anyone or anything that is different than your Islamist-fascist views."
Hoping Bouyeri gets the maximum penalty, Wilders said "society must be protected from people like you. The same counts for the Islam that you represent."
Van Gogh, a distant relative of the 18th-century painter Vincent van Gogh, was a social critic and columnist who attacked the treatment of women in fundamentalist Islamic households in a short film, "Submission," which offended many Muslims.
The film's scriptwriter was Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of parliament who went into hiding for several months after Van Gogh's murder because she was named in the note left on the corpse.
The killing led to dozens of arson attacks against Islamic schools and mosques and has strained relations with the country's 1 million Muslim immigrants.
The judgment referred to Bouyeri's links with a terrorist cell known as the Hofstad Network. He was said to have attended private prayer sessions with a Syrian spiritual leader, Redouan al-Issar, who is reportedly in custody in Damascus, Syria.
On Wednesday, another Dutch court will review the case of a dozen suspected Hofstad Network members. Though they were not accused of having links to Van Gogh's murder, prosecutors say they were plotting other terrorist attacks.
I'm sure he'll be given his own personal Koran.
This guy is should be the poster-child for the Death Penalty.
We've got a bunk in Gitmo you can use, if you're out of space.
If there is no rope, gas, electricity, poisonous drugs, bullets, sharpened blades, lard or pigskin involved in the sentence, then it is too lenient...
Can you imagine if a American film director were murdered, let alone by an Islamic wacko?
What is the logic behind opening the floodgates to allow ONE MILLION immigrants into a country as tiny as the Netherlands? Especially a people who have openly claimed they want to destroy you and your culture??? I just don't get it.
Hoo boy. I am not gonna chance a return through Amsterdam next year. Not.
It's all over for Amsterdam at least. I was hard-pressed to not find dark skin with a veil everywhere I looked.
got an answer? pong
His name is Mohammed?
Shock!
Wait, I thought Poverty, Environmental Degredation and Western Imperialism caused terrorism...
Well, despite not throwing him down into a well and sealing it up forever, at least they have him a speedy trial. Here he'd still be going thru pre-trial motions and psychobabble interviews.
LOL! Ya, right. Chickensh** attacks an unarmed man with a gun and knife, then says he hoped to "die in the action"?
Maybe with any luck, the Dutch have a few Bubbas in their cells. Then this guy can truly feel what it's like to be defenseless.
Well, the Dutch being the Dutch, I could hardly doubt that they do. That would be about the polar opposite of him getting 23 virgins. Ironically, 'mere' life imprisonment, instead of a glorious martyrdumb via electric chair or the scaffold, could be a stronger deterrent to the fanatical Muslim, who of course is anticipating getting his reward a little sooner. Dying is a lot easier than being the jailhouse sponge boy for most of his life.
Economically successful countries need servant classes. Somebody has to do all that housework and gardening. Why they didn't just import some Belgians, though, is beyond me. ;)
Wondering, just what prisons are like in the Netherlands. . .
Bingo. When are people going to wake the heck up...The Dutch have only begun to realize how much peril they are currently in.
Of course, many Dutch believe it's their own fault.
The Netherlands has no death penalty, so they will pay in the neighborhood of 1.5 million dollars to house and feed this cold blooded murderer for the next fifty years, during which time he will study his 'holy book', demand special Islamic food, whine about the condition of his prayer rug, convert fellow prisoners to the ROP, and attempt to murder infidel prisoners and guards who do not share his reverence for the 'prophet'; all of which prompts the question ... citizens of The Netherlands ... are you crazy?
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