The man charged with killing Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh went on trial in Amsterdam Monday and instructed his lawyer not to defend him. Mohammed Bouyeri, 27, a dual Moroccan and Dutch citizen, is charged with the killing last Nov. 2 and indicated to a pre-trial hearing he takes sole responsibility for the assassination. Bouyeri was arrested following a shootout with police just minutes after van Gogh had been shot several times and stabbed.A note spiked into Van Gogh's body carried threats against his co-author, Somali-born Dutch member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A critic of Islam, she wrote the script for his short film "Submission," which offended many Muslims. After van Gogh's slaying, Ali went into hiding for several months. The killing also sparked a wave of revenge attacks on mosques and counterattacks against Christian churches in the Netherlands. The BBC said there will be no summation made at the trial, which is expected to last two days.
UPDATE, EFL: AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - The man accused of killing Dutch film producer Theo van Gogh quoted Arabic prayers at judges as his trial began Monday and walked out of court holding a Quran above his head. Mohammed Bouyeri, the only suspect on trial for Van Gogh's killing, refused to answer questions about his possible motivation and said he has no plans to fight the charges. Bouyeri confirmed his identity for the three-judge bench, but his lawyer, Peter Plasman, has said his client doesn't recognize the court's authority. "My client wants no defense by him, nor on his behalf, and that's a very thoroughly considered decision," Plasman said. "This is probably the last thing I'll be saying at this trial."
Silent through most of the proceedings, Bouyeri said one phrase in Arabic when asked by judges to explain why he seemed to hate the Western society that gave his parents work and asylum. Bouyeri answered: "I pray that God protect me that I should ever think differently than I do now." Reading from police recordings, judges said 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 Bouyeri's writings showed he became radical more than 18 months before the killing.
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 the Van Gogh 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, Peters said.