Reply #6: Life sentence for killer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh [View All]

[geek tragedy]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/07/26/van-Gogh-sentence-050726.html

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A man in the Netherlands was sent to prison for life on Tuesday for killing controversial filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

The court called the killing a terrorist act.

Mohammed Bouyeri, a 27-year-old Dutch citizen, received the harshest sentence possible.

"The murder of Theo van Gogh provoked a wave of revulsion and disdain in the Netherlands," Judge Udo Willem Bentinck said in Amsterdam.

"Theo van Gogh was mercilessly slaughtered," the judge said, adding that his killing caused "great fear and insecurity" in the Netherlands.

Bouyeri ambushed the filmmaker on an Amsterdam street in November 2004.


FROM NOV. 2, 2004: Controversial filmmaker Theo van Gogh killed

He shot Van Gogh repeatedly, stabbed him, and slit his throat before thrusting a letter – the killer's manifesto – into his chest on the point of a knife.

Bouyeri showed no emotion as the verdict was read out and shook his lawyer's hand afterwards.


He'd earlier told the court he was following his religious beliefs.

"I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet," he said.

He also said he intended to die in the attack on Van Gogh, to become a martyr for his faith.

Van Gogh, a distant relative of the artist Vincent van Gogh, was apparently targeted because of his 2004 short film Submission, which told fictional stories of Muslim women who were sexually and physically abused.
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