Amsterdam, February 08: Lawyers for Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders said Monday that if their client’s hate-speech case is not dismissed they want a retrial with new defense witnesses including the country’s most notorious convicted terrorist.
Wilders faces charges of inciting hatred against Muslims after he compared Islam to fascism and called for a ban on the Qur’an.
He is one of the most prominent of the anti-Islam populists gaining influence in Europe, and his case has been seen as a major test of the legitimacy of their ideas.
It pits his right to free speech against the right of Muslim immigrants to freedom from insult and discrimination allegedly caused by Wilders’ remarks.
A new panel of judges was hearing the long-pending case against Wilders after the previous tribunal stepped down last October to avoid the appearance of bias after an appellate judge inolved in the case was accused of having a conversation with a witness before the trial started.
The new panel must decide whether to dismiss the charges, change the venue from the Amsterdam District Court or begin all over again.
If that happens, Wilders’ lawyer Bram Moszkowicz said Wilders wants to call Mohammed Bouyeri, the Muslim radical who is serving a life sentence for the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
Following last year’s elections Wilders is now propping up a minority conservative Cabinet. His platform demands a freeze of immigration from Muslim countries and forcing Muslim immigrants to adopt Dutch cultural values.
Moszkowicz said his client “believes without reservation that Islam is a totalitarian ideology,” but that if he is to be tried for expressing that opinion he must be allowed to cite the experts and evidence that led him to his conclusions.
The legal process so far has proved to be a debacle.
Prosecutors at first declined to press charges in response to dozens of complaints from Muslims, saying Wilders’ remarks were part of a legitimate political debate.
But an appeals court ordered the prosecutors to bring the case to trial. Prosecutors did, but after presenting their case they told trial judges the evidence was too weak for a conviction and called for acquittal on all counts.
Before the trial judges could rule, they were themselves dismissed. Allegations emerged that one of the appeals judges who had ordered for the case to trial had attended a dinner party with a witness, leaving an impression of possible bias.
When trial judges declined to have the appeals judge interrogated in court, a review panel ordered an entirely new set of judges to take over the case.
Prosecutor Birgit van Roessel told the new judges Monday she did not think the case should be dismissed — in essence asking for a clear public ruling on whether remarks such as Wilders’ are permissible.
The prosecution said it would object to some of the proposed defense witnesses.
Co-prosecutor Paul Velleman said the court already has heard enough from three Islam experts, who agreed about the general contents of the Qur’an. Velleman said trying to define the nature of a religion is beyond the bounds of the case.
-Agencies