| Mohammed Bouyeri محمد بويري | |
| Image Upright: | 0.8 |
| Birth Date: | 8 March 1978 |
| Birth Place: | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Charge: | Murder Attempted murder Terrorism |
| Conviction Penalty: | Life imprisonment without parole |
| Conviction Status: | Incarcerated |
Mohammed Bouyeri (Arabic: محمد بويري ; born 8 March 1978) is a Moroccan-Dutch Islamic terrorist serving a life sentence without parole at the Nieuw Vosseveld (Vught) prison for the 2004 murder of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh. A member of the Hofstad Network, he was incarcerated in 2004 and sentenced in 2005.
Mohammed Bouyeri is a second-generation Moroccan-Dutchman of Berber origin.[1] In 1995, Bouyeri finished his secondary education. At university, he changed his major several times and left after five years without obtaining a degree. Bouyeri used the pen name "Abu Zubair" for writing and translating. He often posted letters online and sent emails under this name.
At an early age, he was known to the police as a member of a group of Moroccan "problem-youth." For a while, he worked as a volunteer at Eigenwijks, a neighbourhood organization in Amsterdam's Slotervaart neighbourhood. After his mother died in 2002 and his father remarried in 2003, he started to live according to strict interpretations of Sunni Islamic Sharia law. As a result, he could perform fewer and fewer tasks at Eigenwijks. For example, he refused to serve alcoholic beverages and did not want to be present at activities attended by both women and men. Finally, he put an end to his activities at Eigenwijks altogether. He grew a beard and began to wear a djellaba. He frequently visited the El Tawheed mosque where he met other radical Sunnis, among whom was the suspected terrorist Samir Azzouz.
Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was a vigorous and often polemic critic of several aspects and figures of Dutch society, including religion. In 2004, van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who had become a member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, directed a short film called Submission, Part I about Islam and violence against women. In the film, women are shown wearing transparent clothes with verses of the Quran written on their bodies. The film first aired in August 2004 on Dutch television in prime time.
The 26-year-old Bouyeri murdered van Gogh on the early morning of 2 November 2004 in front of the Amsterdam-Oost borough office (Dutch: stadsdeelkantoor) while van Gogh was bicycling to work.[2] Bouyeri shot van Gogh eight times with a handgun and also wounded two bystanders. Wounded, van Gogh ran to the other side of the road and fell to the ground in the cycle lane. Bouyeri then walked up to van Gogh, who was still lying down, and shot him several more times at close range. Bouyeri then used a large knife to slit van Gogh's throat and attempted to decapitate him, after which he stabbed the knife deep into van Gogh's chest, reaching his spinal cord. He then used a smaller knife to attach a five-page note to van Gogh's body before fleeing. The note contained a warning to Ali. It also contained repeated references to Jewish party-backers and party leaders and made mention of the Jewish political actors in Ali's party, as well as other parties in Dutch politics. The note also referred to the fundamentalist ideology of the Takfir wal-Hijra. It was signed Saifu Deen alMuwahhied.
Van Gogh died at the scene of the crime.[3]
Following an exchange of gunfire with police, during which he was wounded with a shot to his leg, Bouyeri was arrested close to the scene of the crime shortly after its commission. When arrested, Bouyeri had on his person a farewell poem titled In bloed gedoopt ("Baptised in Blood").In his interrogations, he exercised his right to remain silent.
On 11 November 2004, public prosecutor Leo de Wit charged Bouyeri with six criminal acts:
Bouyeri's trial took place over two days, 11 and 12 July 2005, in a high-security building in Amsterdam's Osdorp neighbourhood. In a letter on 8 July, Bouyeri announced that he would not attend the trial voluntarily and that he did not accept the court's jurisdiction.[4] The prosecutor demanded that he be forcibly transported to the courthouse, which the court granted. Bouyeri's attorneys attended the trial, but they did not ask questions or make closing arguments. Bouyeri appeared before the court carrying a Quran under his arm.[5]
At the trial, Bouyeri expressed no remorse for the murder he admitted to having committed, telling van Gogh's mother, "I do not feel your pain. I do not have any sympathy for you. I cannot feel for you because I think you're a non-believer."[6] Bouyeri also expressed that he would do it again if given the chance. Bouyeri also argued that "in the fight of the believers against the infidels, violence is approved by the prophet Muhammad."[7]
The prosecutor demanded life imprisonment for Bouyeri, stating, "The defendant rejects our democracy. He even wants to bring down our democracy. With violence. He is insistent. To this day. He sticks to his views with perseverance."[8] On 26 July 2005, Bouyeri was sentenced to life in prison, which is the severest punishment under Dutch law. Unlike other European countries, life imprisonment carries no chance of parole in the Netherlands. A release is technically possible via a pardon by the reigning monarch, but this is extremely rare; only a few pleas for such pardons have ever been successful in recent history. Other than war criminals, Bouyeri is only the 28th person to receive this punishment in the Netherlands since 1945, and the only person to receive a life sentence for a single murder without aggravating circumstances. Life sentences were seen only with multiple-homicide cases, but the Wet terroristische misdrijven (Terrorist Crimes Law) that went into effect on 10 August 2004 extended it to leaders of terrorist organisations. Imprisonments ordinarily in excess of 15 years can be upgraded to life imprisonment, as was the case with Bouyeri.[9]
Bouyeri is held in the EBI (Supermax) facility within Nieuw Vosseveld prison. There, he met Ridouan Taghi with whom he developed a close bond. Because of this relationship, Bouyeri was moved to another prison. Taghi and Bouyeri continued to write to each other in Arabic, with their writings mostly consisting of Quran verses.[10]