Police arrest man over threat to Verdonk

22 June 2004

AMSTERDAM — Police in Amsterdam have arrested a 22-year-old man accused of making a telephone threat to Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk.

The man is accused of placing a threatening telephone call with RTV North Holland on Thursday 17 June and Amsterdam police said on Tuesday the suspect was arrested on Monday afternoon.

The anonymous caller who made the threat claimed he was acting on behalf of the activist group Section Eight and also claimed responsibility for an incident in which Verdonk was splattered with ketchup last week.

Radio North Holland broadcast the taped conversation on Thursday night and the conversation audio file was also placed on the regional public broadcaster’s website.

The caller gave the Minister Verdonk two weeks to reverse her immigration policy, but did not make a definite death threat. However, he did not rule out anything and referred to Pim Fortuyn, who was shot and killed by a lone gunman in May 2002.

Police claim no link has been found between the arrested suspect and the two women who threw ketchup on Verdonk at the opening of an exhibition at the Bible Museum in Amsterdam on 16 June.

Directly after the threat was made, the two women denied via their lawyers that they were involved in the telephone threat and said to be outraged that the man had made a connection between the incident and his threat.

The two activists were released the next day after the ketchup incident, but the public prosecutor (OM) said on Tuesday it has appealed against the court’s decision to release the women.

A hearing in the chambers of Amsterdam Court later on Tuesday will rule on the prosecution’s appeal.

The women pretended to be a camera crew in order to get close to Verdonk, and were immediately arrested after the incident. They have refused to comment on the matter and do not want to be identified. But their fingerprints indicate they have been arrested on previous occasions.

The women were issued with a summons to appear before a magistrate in Amsterdam on Wednesday afternoon.

If the prosecution wins the appeal against their release, justice authorities will try to track the women down and re-arrest them, but this could prove problematic because the women have not been identified.

Subject: Dutch news