AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Prosecutors on Wednesday told judges they were seeking a 12-year sentence for a Pakistani man who was being tried in absentia for urging people to murder Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders in 2018.
The 37-year-old suspect, identified in court as former Pakistani cricketer Khalid Latif, is charged with incitement to murder, incitement to criminal acts and threatening violence against Wilders. Latif, who lives in Pakistan, did not attend the hearing.
Prosecutors said Latif posted a video in 2018, offering a 3- million-rupee (some 21,000 euros at the time) reward for the murder of Wilders. That video came after Wilders said he planned to hold a cartoon contest depicting caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Mohammad. The competition was later cancelled.
Images of the Prophet Mohammad are forbidden in Islam as a form of idolatry. Caricatures are regarded by most Muslims as highly offensive.
Reuters was not immediately able to reach Latif – who received a five-year ban from cricket in 2017 over a spot-fixing scandal – for comment.
Wilders, 59, is one of Europe’s most prominent far-right leaders and has been a key figure in shaping the immigration debate in the Netherlands over the past decade, although he has never been in government.
His Freedom Party (PVV) is the third-largest in Dutch parliament and is the main opposition party. Wilders has lived under constant police protection since 2004.
The Netherlands and Pakistan have no treaties in place regarding judicial cooperation or extradition and earlier cooperation requests in this case received no response, the prosecution has said.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
