THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch prosecutors demanded a 12-year jail sentence Tuesday for a former Pakistani cricketer accused of incitement to homicide firebrand anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders.
The suspect, recognized by Wilders as Khalid Latif, is accused of providing a bounty of some 21,000 euros ($23,000) to anyone who killed Wilders.
Latif didn’t seem within the high-security courtroom close to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport for the trial. He’s believed to be in Pakistan.
Prosecutors didn’t identify Latif, however stated in a press release {that a} video posted on-line in 2018 confirmed a well-known Pakistan cricketer providing the cash for killing Wilders. The lawmaker has lived underneath round the clock safety for years due to repeated threats to his life sparked by his fierce criticism of Islam.
The menace got here after Wilders stated he would arrange a contest of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims contemplate any depictions of Muhammad to be blasphemous. Finally, the competition didn’t go forward, however the plan sparked outrage within the Muslim world.
“The video message was additional poisonous as a result of it was issued throughout a interval during which there was a variety of hatred and anger in the direction of Geert Wilders,” the Public Prosecution Service in The Hague stated in its written assertion.
The prosecution workplace stated that killing Wilders wouldn’t simply have “brought about insufferable ache to his family members. It might even have been an assault on the rule of legislation itself.”
Wilders stated in courtroom {that a} conviction would ship a “highly effective sign to all different others who subject threats: we cannot settle for it.”
And in feedback he addressed on to Latif, he added: “So long as I am dwelling and respiration, you will not cease me. Your name to kill me and pay cash for it’s abject and won’t silence me.”
A global warrant has been issued for Latif’s arrest. Dutch prosecutors stated that they had been attempting to contact him since 2018, first as a witness after which to reply the fees. Nonetheless, they stated they hadn’t obtained any reply from the Pakistani authorities.
In 2017, Latif, 37, was banned for 5 years from all types of cricket for his function in a match-fixing scandal within the Pakistan Tremendous League.
Tuesday’s case comes at a time when elements of the Muslim world have been angered by a collection of Quran burnings in Sweden. Swedish police have allowed the demonstrations, citing freedom of speech, however have filed preliminary hate speech fees in opposition to a refugee from Iraq who has carried out a collection of such desecrations.