This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1563
January 20, 2006
Trial of Terror
By Emerson Vermaat
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20950
Mohammed Bouyeri, the Dutch Moroccan who savagely slaughtered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh on November 2, 2004, has already been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Now a new trial underway in Amsterdam aims to determine whether Bouyeri acted alone.
There is ample reason to doubt that he did. Specifically, the prosecution seeks to determine the extent of Bouyeri's involvement with a group of radical Muslims known as "The Hofstadgroup." The question before them: Did Bouyeri act on his own, or did he conspire with other members of the Hofstadgroup to murder van Gogh?But on January 13, 2005, a very different Jamal Barkour than the one who gave the critical police statement entered the courtroom. His body language was very different from when the police interrogation took place last December. Now he was extremely nervous; not for one moment did he stop gesticulating. "Did anyone talk to you about the Hofstadgroup?" the court president asked. "No," Barkour said. "Do you know Bilal Lamrani?" "Yes, I know him quite well," Barkour said. "But he never told me anything about plans for a terrorist attack, I made it all up myself, Mr. Judge," Barkour quickly added. There was laughter in the courtroom. "I made my statement to the police because they put me under immense pressure. They bothered me one hundred times with questions about Bilal. I told them one hundred times he didn't tell me anything."
Later, Barkour reduced the number of times he was bothered by the police to 35. Like much of Barkour's new testimony, this claim was at odds with the evidence. Prosecutor Plooy pointed out that the police "bothered" Barkour and his relatives no more than three times with questions about Bilal Lamrani. "That's on record, it certainly wasn't 35 times, so Barkour is lying," said Plooy. And that was just the beginning of Barkour's volte-face.When the judge inquired if he had asked for money in May 2005 in return for information, he dismissed the charge: "Bulls**t!" It was again left to Plooy to point out that Barkour was on record saying precisely the opposite. Barkour next denied any plans to kill patrons of a gay bar and take hostages. Barkour's new version: "Not true! It was made up by myself!" Apropos Lamrani's role in providing Mohammed Bouyeri with a gun and a stolen bicycle: "My own imagination, Mr. Judge." "But what did you discuss with Bilal when you were in prison?" another judge asked. "Well, work, holidays, children, that sort of thing," Barkour replied. As a witness, Barkour was under oath, though, with the exception of Plooy, no one accused him of lying under oath.
Bilal Lamrani also denied ever having discussed terrorist plans and schemes with Jamal Eddin Barkour. "I don't know where he got his information from," he said. "It's imagination." And he claimed to know nothing of Bouyeri's plan to kill Theo van Gogh. Yet, when prosecutor Plooy confronted Lamrani with the fact that Bouyeri had written down his email address in his planner, he pointedly refused to answer.
Present in the courtroom for the Hofstadgroup's strategy of relentless denial was Nouredine el Fatmi. One of the most dangerous fanatics in the group, el-Fatmi has seduced teenage girls in order to recruit them into his "Taqfiri" version of Islam, which essentially permits adherents to kill anyone they dislike. The 24-year-old Moroccan had previously pointed a machinegun at a defenseless and trembling young woman in his apartment in Brussels. She was very much afraid that he would kill her and indeed she still is: So horrified was she in a courtroom appearance last December that she sobbed uncontrollably.
Leaving the courtroom, Jamal Barkour noticed el-Fatmi, looked at him, and said with a smirk, "Sorry boys for the fact they've bothered me." It was as if he had wanted to say, "I've done what you wanted from me." An observer could not help wondering what secrets that two shared. One thing, however, is clear: The Hofstadgroup is not to be believed. Just a few minutes before his exit, one of the three presiding judges, referring to the other members of the group, asked Barkour, "Are you afraid of the people sitting behind you?" "I am afraid of no one!" Barkour said in an angry tone. "Have you been threatened recently?" the judge repeated "Me? I've never been threatened!" Barkour replied, his voice rising. "There was nobody who told you: "You must retract your statement?" the female judge persisted. "No!!!" Barkour shouted. One could not avoid the impression that the louder his voice grew, the less credible his testimony seemed.This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1563