Mohammed Bouyeri ( ; born 8 March 1978) is a Moroccan-Dutch citizen serving a life sentence without parole at the Nieuw Vosseveld prison for the 2004 murder of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh. A member of the Hofstad Network, he was incarcerated in 2004 and sentenced in 2005.
Early life
Bouyeri was born 8 March 1978 in Amsterdam-Oost, the Netherlands, a second-generation Moroccan-Dutchman of Berber origin. At the age of 7, he moved to Slotervaart/Overtoomse Veld. He was considered to be a promising student; completed his higher secondary education at the Mondriaan Lyceum. He was a havo student, while many Moroccan youth in the Netherlands would only advance to lower vmbo education, including most of Bouyeri's class. A former teacher later described him as "timid and observant", determined to get his diploma. Bouyeri shot van Gogh eight times with a handgun and also wounded two bystanders. Wounded, van Gogh ran to the other side of the road and fell to the ground in the cycle lane. Bouyeri then walked up to van Gogh, who was still lying down, and shot him several more times at close range. Bouyeri then used a large knife to slit van Gogh's throat and attempted to decapitate him, after which he stabbed the knife deep into van Gogh's chest, reaching his spinal cord. He then used a fillet knife to attach a five-page note to van Gogh's body before fleeing.
Arrest
Following an exchange of gunfire with police, during which he was wounded with a shot to his leg, Bouyeri was arrested close to the scene of the crime shortly after its commission. When arrested, Bouyeri had on his person a farewell poem titled (). The poem is written as a standard Dutch rhyming poem. It expressed Bouyeri's desire to be killed by the police and become a martyr. In his interrogations, he exercised his right to remain silent.
Legal proceedings
On 11 November 2004, public prosecutor Leo de Wit charged Bouyeri for:
- Murder
- Attempted murder (of a police officer)
- Attempted manslaughter (of bystanders and police officers)
- Violation of the law on gun control
- Suspicion of participation in a criminal organization with terrorist aims
- Conspiracy to murder with a terrorist purpose against van Gogh, Representative Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the other people mentioned in the letter
He was charged under the Netherlands' new anti-terrorism law. On 28 November, current affairs program Opsporing Verzocht broadcast a custody photograph of Bouyeri as part of a public appeal from the Public Prosecution Service to retrace his movements in the days prior to the attack on van Gogh. Bouyeri's lawyer, Peter Plasman, objected to the broadcast and sued the State and broadcaster AVRO in an Amsterdam court on grounds of violation of personal privacy. The prosecutor demanded that he be forcibly transported to the courthouse, which the court granted. Bouyeri's attorneys attended the trial, but they did not ask questions or make closing arguments. Bouyeri appeared before the court carrying a Quran under his arm.
At the trial, Bouyeri expressed no remorse for the murder he admitted to having committed, telling van Gogh's mother, "I do not feel your pain. I do not have any sympathy for you. I cannot feel for you because I think you're a non-believer." Bouyeri also expressed that he would do it again if given the chance. Bouyeri also argued that "in the fight of the believers against the infidels, violence is approved by the prophet Muhammad."
The prosecutor demanded life imprisonment for Bouyeri, stating, "The defendant rejects our democracy. He even wants to bring down our democracy. With violence. He is insistent. To this day. He sticks to his views with perseverance." On 26 July 2005, Bouyeri was sentenced to life in prison, which is the severest punishment under Dutch law. Unlike other European countries, life imprisonment carries no chance of parole in the Netherlands, with the only possibility for release being via a pardon by the reigning monarch.
In 2014, the investigation was reopened to discuss whether Bouyeri could have had help. In 2017, Bouyeri barricaded himself in his jail's kitchen while threatening prison staff by saying that whoever forbade him from praying would get "a dagger between the ribs". In 2018, he relayed a hand-written book to politicians through a courier criticizing Richard Dawkins and inviting them to convert to Islam.
- Journalist Theodor Holman, one of van Gogh's best friends, wrote a film in 2014 called 2/11 – Het Spel van de Wolf (a reference to the date van Gogh was killed, 2 November; "The Game of the Wolf") suggesting that the CIA had been responsible for the killing, as he claimed they had pressured the Dutch secret service to not arrest Bouyeri, in order to use him to get to someone with ties to Al-Qaeda.
See also
- Islam in the Netherlands
- Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
- Kurt Westergaard