Filmmaker's murderer declares 'Islam's enemies' legitimate targets

The Associated Press

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2005

AMSTERDAM The convicted murderer of Theo van Gogh, a filmmaker, said in court Thursday that the United States and the Netherlands and anyone who respects their laws are legitimate targets for Islamic holy warriors.

Mohammed Bouyeri, already serving a life sentence for Van Gogh's murder, is facing separate charges as the ringleader of a terrorist group, in the biggest terrorist trial yet to reach a Dutch court.

Prosecutors allege that Bouyeri, 27, led a network of other Islamic radicals plotting to kill Dutch politicians.

Appearing without a lawyer, Bouyeri denounced Western countries and their allies, blaming them for the war in Iraq. He agreed when a prosecutor asked whether they could be legitimately robbed, lied to or killed in the struggle for Islam.

The Dutch filmmaker had insulted Allah, he said, and Islam "commands me to cut off the head of such people."

But Bouyeri said the other 13 defendants in the landmark trial were not involved in, or even aware, of his plan to kill Van Gogh. "I didn't share it with anyone," he said.

The defendants, mostly young Dutch-born Muslims of North African descent, were arrested shortly after Van Gogh's murder in November 2004. Their lawyers say they had a friendship based on devotion to Islam, and were not a terrorist group.

The case is seen as a test of a new law that makes it illegal to belong to a terrorist organization, making it easier to prosecute extremists who may not have committed overt acts of terrorism. The laws were toughened after the courts acquitted several people accused of preparing attacks.

Two defendants face additional charges related to a clash with the police in which one of them threw a hand grenade that injured three officers. Another, Nourredin el-Fatmi, was arrested with a loaded machine gun after the Dutch secret service told the police he was about to carry out an attack.

Evidence seized in the raids against the 14 suspects includes handbooks on ritual Islamic murders and suicide testaments. They spoke in tapped telephone conversations about slaying nonbelievers like sacrificial lambs.

Many also had copies of the letter Bouyeri left on Van Gogh's corpse, which was addressed to a Dutch lawmaker, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and threatened further attacks on politicians and western countries in the name of radical Islam.

The trial opened Monday and is expected to last through February. Each defendant is now being called for an individual hearing, with Bouyeri the first. Bouyeri declined to answer questions about his co-defendants, at times folding his arms behind his head and smirking or laughing at judges and prosecutors.

Trial date set for plotters

A judge Thursday set a September trial date for five men accused of plotting to kill bus and subway passengers during a failed terrorist attack on July 21, The Associated Press reported from London.

The case has presented difficulties for forensic experts who have yet to determine whether the defendants were carrying explosives that failed to go off or whether the men were carrying fake bombs. One of the defendants - Hussein Osman - said through his lawyer after being arrested in Italy that the bombing attempt was meant to scare people, not kill them.

There were no casualties in the four near-simultaneous botched attacks but the incidents shook Britain's capital two weeks after coordinated suicide attacks July 7 on the transport system killed 56 people, including the four bombers.

All five defendants appeared for the pretrial hearings Thursday via videolink from the high-security Belmarsh Prison in southeast London where they are being held, some waving and smiling at the audience in the courtroom. None entered pleas.

Lawyers said it will take months for forensic experts to examine the material in the five rucksacks that were confiscated after the failed attack, and Justice Alexander Neil Butterfield said one of the reasons for the delay in the trial was because of the complex forensic work.

Prosecutor Nigel Sweeney described the explosives as "hydro-peroxide devices," and said any evidence could be crucial in "the degree to which each explosive device can be tied to a specific defendant."