In a landmark case, the Netherlands has sentenced two Pakistanis to prison for calling on their followers to murder Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders.
The court in The Hague sentenced 56-year-old Imam Muhammad Ashraf Asif Jalali to 14 years in prison over his issuing of a fatwa death warrant on the head of Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders, who now serves as the main power broker behind the Dutch government, for his role in promoting cartoon contests featuring caricatures of Mohammed.
The court found that Jalali had issued demands for the killing of the populist politician in the English language to increase the chances of the fatwa being taken up by an international audience. It ruled that the calls were made with terrorist intent and that it is likely that Jilali’s followers took the demands seriously, Dutch broadcaster NOS reports.
Meanwhile, the court also sentenced 29-year-old Saad Hussain Rizvi to four years in prison for making death threats against Wilders. Rizvi is the leader of the radical Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) group. While the Public Prosecution Service had demanded a six-year sentence for the TLP leader, Rizvi was partially acquitted as it was not determined that he had terrorist intent behind his statements.
Despite the rulings, it is unclear if the two men will actually face justice, given that both reside in Pakistan, a country which the Netherlands does not have an extradition treaty with. However, Wilders called for an international arrest warrant against the two Islamists.
Nevertheless, the politician described the ruling as a “pure win”, adding: “I now hope that the Dutch government will also do everything in its power to ensure that those involved will serve their sentences.”
Regardless of whether Jilali or Rizvi serve time behind bars, Wilders said that the decision is “an important signal, also internationally, that pronouncing a fatwa on a parliamentarian does not go unpunished.”
Writing exclusively for Breitbart London before the trial, Wilders described how he and his wife have been forced to “live in various safe houses” and have been under 24-hour security since receiving Islamist death threats nearly 20 years ago.
“We have lost our freedom and privacy. Everywhere I go, I am constantly surrounded by bodyguards,” he wrote. However, the PVV leader has not bowed in the face of such pressure and has continued to serve as one of the chief critics of radical Islam in Europe.
“I have always been a firm defender of freedom of speech. It is the bedrock of a free society and a functioning democracy. I will never be silenced. Fatwas, death threats, being on the death list of the Taliban and ISIS, nothing will ever stop me from telling the inconvenient truth,” Wilders wrote for Breitbart.
While the trial this week marked the first instance of an imam being convicted for issuing a fatwa, it is not the first conviction over Islamist violence against Mr Wilders.
For example, another Pakistani national, Junaid Iqbal, was sentenced to ten years in prison for plotting a terror attack to “send the dog Wilders to hell.”
In 2023, former Pakistani national cricket team captain Khalid Latif was sentenced to 12 years in prison for putting a bounty on the PVV leader’s head. Yet, he has so far not faced justice as he is protected from prison by Pakistan.