On Monday (11 September), a Dutch court sentenced a former Pakistani cricketer to 12 years in prison for urging people to murder Dutch leader Geert Wilders. The court announced the sentence in his absence as Latif lives in Pakistan and has neither attended any stage of the trial nor been detained in the Netherlands.
According to the Dutch court, the remarks made by 37-year-old Khalid Latif should be regarded as incitement to murder, sedition, and threat. The court stated that the prosecutors had proved that the Pakistani cricketer posted a video in 2018, in which he offered a 3 million rupee (around 21,000 euros at the time) reward for the murder of Greet Wilders.
The Hague district court said, “The words used by the suspect are explicit: he promises to pay a considerable sum of money to anyone who engages in a specific act, namely the killing of Mr Wilders.”
The court was informed about protests where Dutch flags were burned and other protestors also called for the killing of Wilders.
Regarding this, the court added, “It is very likely that someone – anywhere in the world – would feel compelled to act on this call.”
However, the prosecutor told the court that The Netherlands and Pakistan have no treaties in place in matters of judicial cooperation or extradition. The prosecution also highlighted that earlier cooperation requests in this case didn’t receive any response from the Pakistani side.
Notably, the video where Latif gave the call for violence and killing the Dutch leader came after Wilders announced that he had planned to hold a contest for cartoons depicting caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad. However, the competition was later cancelled. In Islam, images of the Prophet Mohammad are forbidden and are considered a form of idolatry. Additionally, most Muslims regard caricatures as highly offensive.
Meanwhile, no immediate response could be received from the former Pakistan Cricketer Khalid Latif who once captained the Pakistan side in the 2010 Asian Games. But in 2017, he received a five-year ban from cricket in 2017 over a spot-fixing scandal.
Earlier, the prosecution demanded that Khalid Latif should be served 12 years of jail term for issuing a bounty against the Dutch leader.
During the trial, Wilders also asserted that a conviction would send a “powerful signal to all others who issue threats: we won’t accept it.”
He also added that he would not stop by these threats and said, “As long as I’m living and breathing, you won’t stop me. Your call to kill me and pay money for it is abject and will not silence me.”
Geert Wilders (60) is one of Europe’s most prominent leaders who has been shaping the immigration debate in the Netherlands over the past two decades, despite never being in government.
His Freedom Party (PVV) is the third-largest in the Dutch parliament and is the main opposition party. Since 2004, he has been living under constant police protection.