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Europe
Dutch political assassin's appeal rejected
2003-07-19
Appeals judges have upheld an 18-year jail sentence imposed on an animal rights activist who murdered Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn last year.
Betcha Fortuyn's dead longer than that...
Volkert van der Graaf, 34, was sentenced in April for shooting the controversial Mr Fortuyn just days before a May 2002 election which swept the politician's untried party into a short-lived government. The appeals judges considered that Van der Graaf suffered from a "compulsive obsessive disorder" but that this did not diminish his responsibility. "He shot the victim without being affected by any disorder that could be proved pathologically," presiding judge Jeroen Chorus said.
"Just being a nut isn't enough..."
Both prosecution and defence had appealed. The public prosecutor called for life imprisonment, while Van der Graaf's lawyers argued that the sentence took insufficient account of his pre-trial detention conditions and of negative comments by politicians before the case came to trial.
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#3  Mark IV - Perfect! When I first heard Who, I thought WTF? And waited for the Why. And waited. And waited...
Posted by: PD   2003-7-19 11:32:45 PM  

#2  No one in the US remembers this incident. It did't happen, in a media sense... the potential was all there, but the details were all mixed up.

Right-wing gay populist politician gunned down by animal-lover? How to explain? Paradigmatic implosion.

Couldn't, didn't happen.

We regret the error.

Errr, we return you to your previously scheduled program...Uranium tubes... all about oil... quagmire... the children.

One of the juicest stories of the decade just unhappened.
Posted by: Mark IV   2003-7-19 9:11:55 PM  

#1  Van der Graaf's lawyers argued that the sentence took insufficient account of his pre-trial detention conditions and of negative comments by politicians before the case came to trial.

"Them nasty politicans were calling me names! I deserve to be sprung!"
Posted by: Steve White   2003-7-19 3:15:52 AM  

00:00