Dutch High Court Orders Retrial of Hofstad Group
February 2, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Found not guilty on the basis of a controversial 2008 decision, the highest court in the Netherlands has ordered a retrial of the "Hofstad Group."
In this matter the group was charged with making preparations for an attack which has yet to come to fruition.
The Hofstad Group became known publicly as the organization to which Mohammed Bouyeri, the assassin of Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh in November of 2004, election day in the U.S., belonged.
The charges on which the 6 members of Hofstad will be retried stem from their membership in a terrorist organization.
Given Hofstad's decentralized structure proving that it meets the Dutch definition of a "terrorist organization" is the crux of the new case.
One of the suspects in the original trial, a "Jason W" was found guilty of possessing explosive devices and plotting to kill Dutch policemen. Under Holland's lenient sentencing laws, he is only serving a 15 yr sentence.
Ditto regarding the defendant's names, under the Netherlands kinder-gentler system of jurisprudence, even the perpetrators real names can't be used, instead substituting fictitious identifiers to maintain, what must be the perceived dignity of the criminal, in this case an Islamic terrorist.
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