A Dutch court convicts 2 Pakistani men over death threats to anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders

SCHIPHOL, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch court convicted two Pakistani religious and political leaders in their absence Monday over calls to their followers to murder anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom that won last year’s general election in the Netherlands.

Wilders has lived under round-the-clock security for nearly 20 years due to the thousands of threats to his life following his outspoken criticism of Islam. His bodyguards and two armed military police sat in the courtroom for Monday’s hearing.

Neither of the defendants was in court to hear the verdicts. They are believed to be in Pakistan and are unlikely to be turned over as Pakistan has no extradition agreement with the Netherlands. Prosecutors said last week that requests they sent to Pakistani authorities seeking legal assistance to serve subpoenas on the two men were not executed.

The court found Muhammad Ashraf Asif Jalali guilty of attempting to provoke murder and incite Wilders’ murder with a terrorist intent and of issuing threats. He was sentenced to 14 years, in line with a sentence demand made last week by prosecutors.

The court said that Jalali is a religious leader whose website claims he has millions of followers around the world. It said his comments to his followers “infringed Wilders’ personal privacy very seriously,” and added that such threats “can also harm freedom of expression in general, while a democratic society benefits from being able to exchange opinions without physical danger.”

In the second case, the court convicted Saad Rizvi, who leads the radical Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, or TLP, for incitement to murder and threatening Wilders. He was sentenced to four years, two years less than prosecutors had requested. He got a lower sentence in part because the court ruled that his comments posted on social media did not amount to a terrorist crime.

Wilders welcomed the verdicts and sentences from the three-judge panel.

“I’m very pleased about it. It’s really, I believe, the first time ever in Holland that an imam, from abroad in this case, is being sentenced for an a long jail sentence for putting a fatwa on the head of a parliamentarian in the Netherlands. My head. And I’m very pleased about that,” he said outside the courtroom.

They are not the first Pakistani men convicted and sentenced in the Netherlands for threats targeting Wilders.

Last year, a former Pakistani cricketer, Khalid Latif, was sentenced to 12 years in prison over allegations that he had offered a reward for the death of Wilders. Latif also did not appear for trial and is not in custody in the Netherlands. Rizvi publicly praised Latif, the court ruled Monday.

Also, in 2019, a Pakistani man was arrested in the Netherlands, convicted and sentenced to 10 years for preparing a terrorist attack on Wilders, who is sometimes called the Dutch Donald Trump.

A prosecutor, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, told judges last week that threats began to be aired on social media after Wilders’ announcement that he was organizing a competition for cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2018. The planned contest sparked angry protests in Pakistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world.

Physical depictions of the prophet are forbidden in Islam and deeply offensive to Muslims.

Wilders told judge last week about the way the threats had affected his life.

“Every day you get up and leave for work in armored cars, often with sirens on, and you are always aware somewhere in the back of your mind that this could be your last day,” he said.