Dutch Court Hands Down Terror Verdicts

A Dutch court convicted nine members of an Islamic extremist cell on terrorism charges Friday, but their relatively light sentences and the acquittals of five other suspects revealed continuing legal obstacles to fighting terrorism in the Netherlands.

The verdicts announced in a heavily guarded courtroom in Amsterdam were a partial victory for prosecutors in the case against the Hofstad Group, which stunned the Netherlands when its leader assassinated filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004.

The predominantly Dutch-born militants stood out because of their youth, ferocity and the prominent role of women in the network.

The threat the group posed forced a number of political figures in the usually tranquil country to go into hiding, temporarily flee the country and protect themselves with 24-hour security details.

The three-judge panel also convicted Van Gogh’s assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri, who is already serving a life sentence for the ritualistic shooting and stabbing of the outspoken filmmaker.

The judges imposed 15- and 13-year sentences, respectively, on Jason Walters, 21, and Ismail Aknikh, 23, for attempted murder and membership in a terrorist group.

Walters and Aknikh, both of whom had traveled to Pakistan to train with militants, wounded three police officers with grenades during a standoff in The Hague soon after Van Gogh’s slaying. Police arrested Walters and Aknikh because wiretaps indicated that they planned follow-up assassinations of legislators, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a feminist who worked with Van Gogh on a short film critical of Islamic extremism. But the court did not accept that evidence because it was gathered by the intelligence service, not the police -- a recurring problem in Dutch anti-terrorism prosecutions.

The judges imposed a five-year sentence on one of the other central figures: Nourredine Fatmi, a Moroccan-born 23-year-old who was captured at an Amsterdam subway station last July with a loaded and cocked machine pistol. Prosecutors had asked for a 10-year sentence.

There was evidence that Fatmi and his girlfriend plotted to kill Ali, and a witness said that Fatmi admitted the plot afterward. But judges convicted him only of weapons possession and terrorist activity. His girlfriend is already serving time for weapons possession.

Prosecutors said the mixed results were caused by the court’s complex assessment of the evidence.

“We are satisfied that the court agreed with the prosecutors that there is a terrorist organization,” spokesman Wim de Bruin said in a telephone interview. “The court had its own opinion on the intentions of the terror group.

“The prosecutor’s office stated that it was inevitable they would commit an attack,” he said. “But the court felt there was not enough evidence to convict them of that intention. The court felt that the group was still developing.”

The case highlights a concern of European and U.S. law enforcement officials: disparities among judicial systems that remain an impediment to a unified campaign against terrorism. Despite legislation introduced in 2004, the Dutch system still has shorter sentences and more stringent standards of proof in terrorism cases than in countries such as Spain and France.

Critics in Europe point out that Dutch anti-terrorism agencies grew alarmed about the Hofstad Group more than a year before Van Gogh’s slaying. Police made a number of arrests, but courts released or acquitted suspects. Recently, authorities were forced to drop charges against a Moroccan-born interpreter for the intelligence service accused of acting as a double agent for the network.

The five men acquitted Friday had already been released because they had served more time than the sentences they might have faced. They included Jason Walters’ younger brother, Jerome.

The brothers are Dutch converts to Islam whose father was a member of the U.S. military stationed in the Netherlands. As teenagers, the Walters became so radical that they tried to force their mother and sister to wear burkas and adopt fundamentalist practices, prompting the women to go to the police.

The violent, angry language in intercepted phone calls and e-mails among the Walters brothers and others underscored that Islamic extremists in Europe increasingly are young and volatile, investigators said.

If Jason Walters and Aknikh had not responded violently to the police raid, they probably would not have received such stiff sentences, law enforcement officials said.

Fatmi, meanwhile, remains under investigation because of his ties to accused militant Samir Azzouz, who will be tried this year on charges of plotting to kill politicians.

Azzouz first became known to police when he was in high school: He was arrested in Ukraine while traveling to join Islamic militants in the Russian republic of Chechnya. He was acquitted last year of plotting attacks on the Amsterdam airport and the intelligence service headquarters.