Start of long story. AP has it classified as Entertainment
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Dutch police have arrested eight suspected Islamic radicals as part of the investigation into the brutal slaying of outspoken filmmaker Theo van Gogh, prosecutors said Wednesday. The suspects were detained in the 24 hours following Van Gogh's killing while he bicycled on an Amsterdam street, prosecution spokeswoman Dop Kruimel told The Associated Press. Six detainees are of Moroccan origin, one is Algerian and the other has dual Spanish-Moroccan nationality, she said. The suspect in the killing — a 26-year-old suspected Muslim extremist with dual Moroccan-Dutch citizenship — was arrested Tuesday after a shootout with police. The unidentified suspect was wounded in the leg. | I'm curious as to why they won't ID the guy. |
Kruimel said the suspects, whose identities were not released, were detained and released during an October 2003 investigation into a potential terrorist threat. "Don't do it. Don't do it. Have mercy. Have mercy!" the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper quoted Van Gogh as begging his killer. Another Dutch newspaper, the Telegraaf daily, carried a large color photograph of Van Gogh's body with a knife protruding from his chest under the headline "Butchered." | A little light reading with your Wednesdag coffee. |
"We're not going to take this," the Dagblad said. The paper said the killer shot Van Gogh eight or nine times, then calmly slipped his weapon in the pocket of a beige raincoat before bending over his victim and slitting his throat. | Eyewitness accounts said he calmly waited for Theo to die of the gunshots, then tried to cut his head off. |
Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said the suspect "acted out of radical Islamic fundamentalist convictions" and added that he had contacts with a group that was under surveillance by the Dutch secret service. | Yesterday the authorities were telling everyone "not to jump to conclusions." I s'pose the Koran pages pinned to Theo's chest with a knife made the conclusions hard to ignore. Also this poster, found on a Dutch jihadi website. (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch) |
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