Prosecutors in the Netherlands have called for a 14-year prison sentence against a Pakistani Islamist hate cleric over allegedly calling for the death of Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service on Monday called for a 14-year prison sentence against Pakistani Muhammed Ashraf Jalali and a 6 year sentence for 29-year-old Pakistani Saad Hussain Rizvi, broadcaster NOS reports. Mr Wilders has called the case historic, stating it is the first instance of imams being put on trial for issuing fatwa death threats.
The trial, which is being conducted despite the absence of both suspects, who are believed to both be living in their native Pakistan, centres around alleged calls for the death of Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders, the head of the largest party in the Netherlands and the main power player behind the newly-formed coalition government.
Wilders has been living in safe houses and under 24-hour security since 2004 after receiving death threats over his strident criticism of Islam and the Islamisation of Europe.
Prosecutors allege that Jalali called upon his followers to either behead or hang the populist politician. Rizvi, who now leads the Islamist extremist Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party is facing a conviction for making threats against the PVV leader.
Writing exclusively for Breitbart London ahead of the trial, Wilders said: “I have always been a firm defender of freedom of speech. It is the bedrock of a free society and a functioning democracy. I will never be silenced. Fatwas, death threats, being on the death list of the Taliban and ISIS, nothing will ever stop me from telling the inconvenient truth.”
While the Netherlands does not have an extradition treaty with Pakistan, meaning that the the imam and the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan chief are unlikely to face prison unless they travel internationally, Wilders argued that the trial was a major milestone in confronting radical Islam.
The populist leader, whose party won a historic victory in last year’s elections and has cemented itself as the driving force in the new Dutch government, urged other Western nation to follow the lead of the Netherlands in taking a hardline stance towards Islamic extremism in Pakistan and elsewhere.
“Pakistan’s permissive approach towards Islamic terrorist clerics, groups and parties endangers not only the country’s own moderate Muslims and its non-Muslim minority, but encourages extremist Pakistanis to impose their violent ideology in Western countries. It is brave of the Dutch judiciary and government to stand up to them. More countries should follow the Dutch lead in this regard,” Wilders wrote for Breitbart.
The trial against the two radical Islamists is expected to conclude next week.
Although the trial marks the first time an imam has faced criminal charges for issuing a fatwa, it is not the first time that extremists from Pakistan have been tried for making threats on the life of the Dutch populist leader.
In 2021, Pakistani national Junaid Iqbal was sentenced by the court in The Hague to 10 years for plotting a terror attack on Wilders.
Last year, another Pakistani citizen, Khalid Latif, who formerly served as the captain of Pakistan’s national cricket team, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for offering up a bounty on the head of the PVV leader. However, like Jalali and Rizvi, Latif was tried in abstention given that he lives in Pakistan.
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