Mohammed Bouyeri | |
|---|---|
محمد بويري | |
 Bouyeri in 2004 | |
| Born | (1978-03-08)8 March 1978 (age 47) Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Other names | Abu Zubair |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated |
| Criminal charge | |
| Penalty | Life imprisonment without parole |
| Details | |
| Victims | Theo van Gogh |
| Date | 2 November 2004 (2004-11-2) |
| Imprisoned at | Nieuw Vosseveld |
Mohammed Bouyeri (Arabic:محمد بويريMuḥammad Būyiri; born 8 March 1978) is a Moroccan-Dutch citizen serving alife sentence withoutparole at theNieuw Vosseveld prison for the 2004 murder of Dutch film directorTheo van Gogh. A member of theHofstad Network, he was incarcerated in 2004 and sentenced in 2005.
Bouyeri was born 8 March 1978 inAmsterdam-Oost, the Netherlands, a second-generation Moroccan-Dutchman ofBerber origin.[1][2] At the age of 7, he moved toSlotervaart/Overtoomse Veld. He was considered to be a promising student; completed his highersecondary education at the Mondriaan Lyceum. He was ahavo student, while many Moroccan youth in the Netherlands would only advance to lowervmbo education, including most of Bouyeri's class. A former teacher later described him as "timid and observant", determined to get his diploma.[2][3]
He was one of a few local Moroccan boys who got on well with the local police, who otherwise had very negative contact with the Muslim community.[2] In 1994, a local youth center was torn down and replaced with a center for migrants, which Bouyeri and others in the community resented as it serviced adults rather than young people.[3]
In 1997, he began university at the Inholland Hogeschool of Applied Sciences inDiemen.[2] He spent five years studying at the school, being involved in various courses, but finished none of them.[2] He switched majors repeatedly, fromaccounting to business information technology, but did not put in much effort.[2] In the Netherlands in the 90s, foreign origin students faced higher than usual dropout rates at universities, contributed to by cultural adjustment problems and educational disadvantages they may face.[2]
In summer 2000, Bouyeri, alongside some other men, stormed the school's cafe and began a fight with the other patrons, deliberately attacking the Dutch people present. The cafe was disliked by the Muslim students of the school, who viewed it as excluding them.[2] In 2001 Bouyeri got into a fight with a man who was dating one of his sisters. When the police arrived, Bouyeri was found to be holding a knife. Bouyeri attempted to stab one of the responding officers, before throwing the knife at their head. Bouyeri was sentenced to prison, which he served in a detention center inAlmere, and was released towards the end of 2001.[2]
After his release from prison Bouyeri attempted to be a productive member of society. Around the time of his release, his mother died and theSeptember 11 attacks occurred. During 2002 Bouyeri started a course in social teaching assistance at the Amsterdam Hogeschool of Applied Sciences, and started working at theEigenwijks, a community center in Slotervaart/Overtoomse Veld.[2] Bouyeri campaigned for the opening of a youth center in the secondary school, but this plan was rejected by the authorities. He began to believe that Dutch society and its institutions were anti-Moroccan.[2]
After his mother died in 2002 and his father remarried in 2003, he started to live according to strict interpretations of Sunni IslamicSharia law. At university, he changed his major several times and left after five years without obtaining adegree. Bouyeri used the pen name "Abu Zubair" for writing and translating, under which he wrote radical texts.[4] He often posted letters online and sent emails under this name.
He would move in spring 2002 out of his parents house to a small apartment inSlotermeer;[5] after this, he became increasingly active online. He would produce pamphlets containingantisemitic andanti-Dutch content.[5] Additionally, due to his strict adherence toSharia, he could perform fewer and fewer tasks atEigenwijks. For example, he refused to serve alcoholic beverages and did not want to be present at activities attended by both women and men. Finally, he put an end to his activities atEigenwijks altogether. He grew a beard and began to wear adjellaba. He frequently visited theEl Tawheed Mosque where he met otherradical Sunnis, among whom was the suspected terroristSamir Azzouz.[6][7] He was part of theHofstad Network.[7]
FilmmakerTheo van Gogh was an often polemic critic of several aspects and figures of Dutch society, including religion.[8] In 2004, van Gogh andAyaan Hirsi Ali, aSomali refugee who had become a member of theHouse of Representatives of the Netherlands, directed a short film calledSubmission, Part I about Islam andviolence against women.[9]
Bouyeri murdered van Gogh on the early morning of 2 November 2004 in front of theAmsterdam-Oost borough office (Dutch:stadsdeelkantoor) while van Gogh was bicycling to work.[10] 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 hisspinal cord. He then used afillet knife to attach a five-page note to van Gogh's body before fleeing.[11][12]
The note called for the death of all unbelievers and several people he personally disliked.[11] The note was primarily addressed to Ali, calling her a heretic and a willing collaborator of "Zionists and Crusaders", saying she would be destroyed. It also attacked other people, containing repeated references toJewish politicians, referring to a "Jewish cabal" that he said ruled the Netherlands, who he said were Ali's masters. Also included in this cabal, according to Bouyeri, were several politicians who were actually not Jewish.[13]
Van Gogh died at the scene of the crime.[14]
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.[15] When arrested, Bouyeri had on his person a farewell poem titledIn bloed gedoopt (transl. Baptised in Blood). The poem is written as a standard Dutch rhyming poem. It expressed Bouyeri'sdesire to be killed by the police andbecome a martyr.[16] In his interrogations, he exercised hisright to remain silent.
On 11 November 2004, publicprosecutor Leo de Wit charged Bouyeri for:[17]
He was charged under the Netherlands' new anti-terrorism law.[18] On 28 November, current affairs program Opsporing Verzocht broadcast acustody photograph of Bouyeri as part of a public appeal from thePublic Prosecution Service to retrace his movements in the days prior to the attack on van Gogh.[19] Bouyeri's lawyer, Peter Plasman, objected to the broadcast and sued the State and broadcasterAVRO in an Amsterdam court on grounds of violation of personal privacy.[19] Plasman appealed for an injunction before the broadcast to prevent the picture from being released, which was denied.[19] The publishing of Bouyeri's photograph was personally approved by justice ministerPiet Hein Donner.[19]
Bouyeri's trial took place over two days, 11 and 12 July 2005, in a high-security building in Amsterdam'sOsdorp neighbourhood. In a letter on 8 July, Bouyeri announced that he would not attend the trial voluntarily and that he did not accept the court's jurisdiction.[20] 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 aQuran under his arm.[21]
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."[22] 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 prophetMuhammad."[23]
The prosecutor demandedlife 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."[24] 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 ofparole in the Netherlands, with the only possibility for release being via a pardon by the reigning monarch.[12] Other thanwar criminals, Bouyeri was only the 28th person to receive this punishment in the Netherlands since 1945, and the only person to receive a life sentence for a single murder without aggravating circumstances. Life sentences were seen only with multiple-homicide cases, but theWet terroristische misdrijven (transl. Terrorist Crimes Law) that went into effect on 10 August 2004 extended it to leaders of terrorist organisations. Imprisonments ordinarily in excess of 15 years can be upgraded to life imprisonment, as was the case with Bouyeri.[12]
In 2014, the investigation was reopened to discuss whether Bouyeri could have had help.[25] Bouyeri is held in the EBI (Supermax) facility withinNieuw Vosseveld prison. There, he metRidouan Taghi with whom he developed a close bond. Because of this relationship, Bouyeri was moved to another prison. Taghi and Bouyeri continued to write to each other inArabic, with their writings mostly consisting ofQuran verses.[26] 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".[27] In 2018, he relayed a hand-written book to politicians through a courrier criticizingRichard Dawkins and inviting them to convert to Islam.[27]
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