The man accused of killing the Dutch film producer Theo van Gogh quoted prayers in Arabic at judges yesterday and walked out of court holding a Qur'an above his head. Mohammed Bouyeri, the only suspect on trial for Mr van Gogh's killing, refused to answer questions about his possible motivation and said he had no plans to fight the charges. Prosecutors say Mr Bouyeri, 27 and of Moroccan origin, attacked Mr van Gogh in a street in Amsterdam on November 2 2004, shooting him several times and then going on a rampage that targeted police officers. He could face life imprisonment if convicted of terrorism, murder, attempted murder and impeding democracy by threatening members of parliament. The killing was seen by some as an act of terrorism because Mr van Gogh was a prominent critic of Islam.
| Ummm... What does everybody else see it as? Who is "everybody else"? |
Silent throughout most of the proceedings, Mr Bouyeri said one phrase in Arabic when asked by judges to explain why he seemed to hate the western society which had given his parents work and asylum. Mr Bouyeri said: "I pray that God protect me that I should ever think differently than I do now." Reading from police recordings, judges said Mr Bouyeri laughed and told his younger brother Hassan: "I knew what I was doing, and I succeeded."
"I swear to God, if there were a death penalty, I would be begging for it," he was quoted by the judges as having said. The day's main witness was Rudolph Peters, a professor of Islamic culture at the University of Amsterdam, who said Mr Bouyeri's writings showed he became radical more than 18 months before the killing. Mr Bouyeri, allegedly a member of a terrorist cell known as the Hofstad Network, is said to have attended private prayer sessions with a Syrian spiritual leader, Redouan al-Issar, who disappeared shortly before Mr van Gogh's murder. Twelve other suspected group members are awaiting trial on separate terrorism charges. "My conclusion is that Mr Bouyeri saw himself as an instrument of God," when he allegedly carried out the killing, Professor Peters said.
| "Yer honor, this man is a nut!" |