Posted on 11/12/2004 9:22:08 AM PST by knighthawk
Suspect in Van Gogh Murder Case has Contacts with Islamic Fundamentalists
Amsterdam - The 26-year-old suspect witnesses say murdered Theo van Gogh, 47, on the Linneausstraat in Amsterdam Tuesday the 2nd of November, was, says Ministers Piet Donner at Justice and Johan Remkes at Internal Affairs, associated with a group of Islamic extremists who were under surveillance by the General Intelligence and Investigation Agency (Aivd). This contact, say the Ministers, makes it plausible the holder of a Dutch and Moroccan passport acted on grounds of a "radical Islamic conviction".
The man appeared only incidentally in the investigation conducted by the Aivd into a core group of 150 Muslim fundamentalists in the Netherlands. For this reason, says Minister Remkes, there was no basis for the assumption the man may be involved in concrete plans for terrorist activities in the Netherlands. Neither Minister Donner nor Minister Remkes would confirm or deny whether or not they knew the suspect was in contact with Samir Azzouz, an 18-year old Muslim who was arrested this past June on the suspicion he planned to carry out terrorist attacks against, among others Schiphol Airport, The Tweede Kamer (Lower House) and the Borssele nuclear power plant in Zeeland .
A fellow film producer of Van Gogh, Gijs van de Westelaken, says Van Gogh was on his way Tuesday morning to work at his film studio Column Productions on the Van Breestraat in Amsterdam. A woman cyclist who was behind Van Gogh on the bicycle path aside the Linneausstraat Tuesday morning, said another cyclist who was following Van Gogh opened fire on Van Gogh .
Van Gogh, apparently wounded, made his way across the street where he fell on the bike path in front of the restaurant Eetcafé De Hollander. A witness inside a Laundromat said he saw Van Gogh cross the street with another man coming after him. After Van Gogh fell, the man approached him and fired several shots at Van Gogh. He then put his gun away and drew out a long bread-like looking knife. At the same time, Van Gogh cried, "Don't do it! Don't do it! Mercy! Mercy!". The suspect, says the witness, proceeding to slit the throat of Van Gogh.
The witness said the suspect acted as if he were a butcher. When satisfied Van Gogh was dead, the man pulled out sheets of paper. He placed them on the stomach of Van Gogh, who was lying back down with his arms stretched above his head, and then stuck a knife through the paper into the stomach of Van Gogh.
The suspect then walked quietly away. He talked to someone on the other side of the street before making his way to the Oosterpark. He was later met by police officers on the Mauritsweg where he was wounded in the leg by police gun fire and arrested. Gun shots fired by the suspect while pursuing Van Gogh also hit a bystander who reported the crime at the police precinct station just down the block from the shooting.
As Van de Westelaken indicated, Van Gogh was on his way to his film studio where he is editing takes of his new film, 06/05, a film over Pim Fortuyn, the upstart politician who was himself assassinated on 6 May 2002 or nine days before the general election. Van Gogh was also in negotiations with several film distributing companies worldwide over rights to his film Submission.
Since this film deals with the position of women in the Muslim community, the person responsible for the script of the film, Miss Ayaan Hirsi Ali, feels most responsible for his death. Miss Hirsi Ali, a member of the Liberal Party group in the Tweede Kamer (Lower House) originally from Somalia and an ex-Muslim, is "extremely shocked" by the murder of Van Gogh. She says, "I am furious. I am sad and I have feelings of guilt. I feel extremely guilty".
Miss Hirsi Ali has been given extra body guards by the Government On 2 November she was overcome by grief and went home. Before she left, she told journalists in The Hague, "I wrote the script for Submission. Is it worth a human life? I do not think so...Theo insisted he is not afraid. I, however, knew it would happen. It is quite painful and now that it has happened, it is ghastly".
Another member of parliament who fears for his life, Mr. Geert Wilders, formerly a member of the Liberal Party group but now an independent, says this terrorist act will not prevent him from expressing his opinion. I, of course, am afraid. When I heard Van Gogh was murdered, my legs nearly buckled and my stomach turned upside down". Wilders says he has recently been threatened with beheading because of his verbal attacks on radical extremists.
At the Dam in downtown Amsterdam on the evening of 2 November, Mayor Job Cohen of Amsterdam and Minister Rita Verdonk at Integration and Alien Affairs were introduced to 20,000 Van Gogh mourners making a "noisy protest" by a family relative of Van Gogh and fellow cineast, Lennart Boij.
Mr. Cohen told the 20,000 persons gathered on the Dam what makes him especially angry is an "Amsterdammer has been murdered", and it , "...has happened in my city of Amsterdam...We disagree with each other in a great number of ways. A fundamental right in our society and in Amsterdam is the freedom to say what you wish. You may argue with your pen or, if necessary, tak your case to the court, but you never have the right to take it into your own hands. Theo van Gogh has been silenced. This is something we cannot accept".
Cohen, with reference to the penchant of Van Gogh to make others the butt of his sarcasm, said, "Theo van Gogh was able to make everyone mad and that counts as well for me. He, however, had the right to do that in this country".
Mrs. Verdonk said she spoke on behalf of the Cabinet in expressing her horror over the murder of Van Gogh. Verdonk also said, "I was getting to know Van Gogh pretty good. He told me, 'Rita, stand tall. You, however, have also to think of yourself and of the people'". She said the murder was a "cowardly and cruel act". The country, she said, stands before the choice, "....for hatred and fear, or we say, this is as far as it is going to go. We will stop it".
Prior to his death, Van Gogh told his partner Gijs van de Westelaken in production of the film 06/05 that should anything in the near future happen to him, he should take care of the funeral. Van Gogh, upon his recent visit to the United States, indicated that in the end he would leave the Netherlands. He would stay here in the Netherlands until his son was out of school, and then he would move to America.
Ping
DON'T!!!
Let this incident steel your resolve.
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