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Europe
Netherlands: Another jailed jihadi rejects terrorism
2010-11-02
Eight sentences of the two-page article, in accordance with current Fair Use rules.
After four years in prison for violently resisting arrest, with eleven more to go on his sentence, Dutch terrorist Jason (Jamal) Walters, aka Abu Mujahied Amriki, said in an open letter that he has renounced Islamic radicalism.

"The image that the world only exists of believers and infidels, in which the latter are motivated only to destroy the former, is a childish and coarse simplification of reality," Walters said.
-- Jason Walters
"The ideals that I once honored have been lost and I have come to realize that they are morally bankrupt," Walters said in what he called a "review document" written from the maximum-security prison in Vught. It was published recently in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant.

Walters is a leading member of the jihadist Hofstadgroep, made up of Islamists primarily of Moroccan origin. The group was led by Mohammed Bouyeri, who is serving a life sentence for killing controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004.

In 2004 Walters resisted arrest for plotting to kill Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, causing a 14-hour siege during which he threw a grenade at police, injuring four policemen.

"It's better to burn out than it is to rust" could be the summary of Mr. Walters' brief rise and fall as a follower of the hard jihad of the sword. The son of an African-American soldier father and a Dutch mother, Walters and his younger brother followed their father into Islam as teenagers, then quickly found their way to jihad. Before he was twenty our boy had made his way to Pakistan to train with jihadi groups, and a year later he was arrested after that violent siege mentioned above. He was convicted, although the Dutch legal system is revisiting the concept of a terror group. Having had four years to reflect in prison, he's realized that violent jihad corrupts by harming innocent Muslims and turning them against Islamic rule, so he's given it up. As the article points out, he doesn't regret the goal of the Caliphate, just as others who have come to abjure violent jihad say that Al Qaeda, etc. erred when they brought destruction upon the Ummah by attacking an overwhelming opponent.

Nb: this comment is based on a number of articles read at Rantburg and elsewhere.
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Europe
Dutch court acquits Hofstadgroep suspects
2008-01-25
A Dutch appeal court acquitted six suspected members of an Islamist terrorist group on Wednesday, saying the prosecutor had failed to prove such an organisation existed. A seventh suspect, Jason Walters, who in 2004 injured five policemen with a hand grenade at his arrest, was given a 15-year prison sentence as before, but for attempted murder, rather than for being part of a terrorist group.

“The Hofstadgroep (Hague group) has insufficient organisational substance to conclude it was an organisation,” the court ruling said, adding that the prosecutor had failed to prove the suspects made up a terrorist group. The prosecutor had said the group had planned terrorist attacks and was formed around Dutch-Moroccan Mohammed Bouyeri, who was sentenced for the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004. Some of the suspects were also Dutch citizens of Moroccan descent. They had all denied the charges and had appealed a ruling by a lower court in 2006 sentencing them to up to fifteen years each for forming a terrorist group.
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Europe
Samir A. 'planned' suicide attack in Holland
2006-10-22
Terror suspects Samir A. and Noureddine El F. wanted to obtain materials in Germany to make a bomb belt and carry out a suicide attack in the Netherlands, the Amsterdam trial court was told on Friday.

Crown witness Lahbib B. — who also stands accused in the Piranha investigation — said Samir A. asked him in the summer of 2005 — shortly after the arrest of El F. — to travel to Germany with him. He said A. wanted to see how many checks were carried out along the border. B. said further that Samir A. wanted to obtain the "ingredients of a bomb belt" in Germany.

El F. — who was arrested with a loaded automatic pistol in Amsterdam West — allegedly showed the witness on CD-ROM how to make a bomb belt. B. could not tell the judge how the suicide attack would be carried out.
“ B. has also said that the Syrian spiritual leader of the Hofstadgroep had said that attacks in the Netherlands were permitted ”
B. has also said that the Syrian spiritual leader of the Hofstadgroep — which A. and El F. were members of — had said that attacks in the Netherlands were permitted because of Dutch support given to the US. The members of the group later spoke frequently about jihad in the Netherlands. The witness said Samir A. and El F. regularly played with weapons. B. gave his witness testimony in a closed room because he did not wanted to be identified by visitors to the court for safety reasons.
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Europe
Samir Azzouz on trial again in Holland
2006-02-03
Another day, another trial, another opportunity for the Dutch prosecutors to screw up the case against this scumbag.
Samir Azzouz resumed plotting terrorist attacks in the Netherlands almost immediately after his release from a short jail sentence last year, a prosecutor told a trial in Rotterdam on Friday. The criminal intelligence department of the police in Utrecht was told by an informant that the 19-year-old Dutch-Moroccan had had resumed his activities shortly after he served a a short sentence. That jail sentence was imposed on him for assaulting a photographer following his acquittal by another court of plotting terrorism.

The prosecutor told the panel of three judges on the first day of the new trial on Friday that Samir Azzouz "wanted to leave his mark on the world" and "die as a martyr". The informer told the police Samir A. had taken over the leadership role the man dubbed the "Syrian".
Apparently George Clooney was needed in Davos or Sundance or something...
This Syrian man left the Netherlands around the time filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by Islamic extremist Mohammed Bouyeri.
"Oops, look at the time. I simply must be going. Keep up the good work, lads. Allan has a nice reward all picked out for you!"
The Syrian, the authorities say, was the spiritual leader of the Hofstadgroep. This is the code name investigators gave to a group of young Muslims, including Mohammed Bouyeri, who were allegedly part of a Muslim terrorist organization. Samir Azzouz and six young Muslims linked to him were arrested in police raids on 14 October last year.
Hofstad Group sounds less threatening than "Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Millions of Canals and Extremely Uncomfortable Shoes."
Two other people were arrested later. Four men remain in custody. The police say they carried out the raids to prevent attacks on national politicians. They discovered a video testament made by Samir Azzouz, which allegedly indicated he planned to launch a suicide attack.
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Great White North
Suspect knew of Van Gogh murder plan
2005-12-17
Terrorist suspect Nouriddin El F. knew in advance about the plan to kill film director Theo van Gogh, a witness told the trial on Friday. The witness, named only as A.A., 28, said El F. told him he gave moral support and encouragement to Mohammed B., the man who killed Van Gogh in November 2004. El F., B and 12 other Dutch-Muslims are on trial charged with membership of a terrorist organisation, the Hofstadgroep. Police recovered a mini machine gun when they arrested El F. in Amsterdam earlier this year. The witness said he met El F in The Hague shortly before that. El F. told him that he was "number 1", the police were searching for him and that he would not be taken alive. He wanted to die a martyr, the witness said.
sorry, twerp
Earlier in the trial, Mohammed B. repeated his assertion that he acted alone when he killed Van Gogh and that no one knew about his plan. El F. disputes that he ever met A. The defence suggested on Friday that A. was concocting his testimony because his ex-wife Soumaya S. went on to have a relationship with El F.
Cherchez la femme. The brazen hussy...
A second witness, 24-year-old H.S. from The Hague, said El F. was been heavily involved with guns. The woman appeared very frightened and nervous as she told the court that El F. forced her and her husband to rent a house in Brussels, and the three of them travelled there together on a few occasions. El F. also threatened her with a gun, she said.
"Make me breakfast or I'll plug yez, bitch!"
S. recounted how when walking in the Amsterdamse Bos (wood) with her husband and El F., the accused man took out a gun and began shooting. He also made them fire the gun. "I was very frightened, also because I was afraid I would be shot," she said. The trial continues.
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Europe
Dutch intelligence translator who sold out Van Gogh jugged
2005-12-15
A Moroccan-Dutch translator, who worked for the Dutch intelligence service AIVD, has been jailed for four-and-a-half years for leaking confidential information to terrorist suspects.

A court in Rotterdam imposed the sentence on Outman Ben A., 34, for leaking state secrets, some of which came into the hands of suspected members of the Hofstadgroep. Ben A., who translated Arabic into Dutch for the AIVD, has consistently denied the allegations against him. "I feel really I have been treated in a rotten way," he said when the verdict was announced. He is appealing against the conviction.

Mohammed B, the man who killed film director Theo van Gogh - and 13 other Muslims are on trial in Amsterdam on charges of membership of the Hofstadgroep. The authorities claim the group is a fundamentalist Muslim terror network in the Netherlands.

Prosecutors had sought an eight-year sentence for Ben A., who has been in custody for over a year. The Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) had worked hard in this case as a very serious crime had been committed, justice officials said.

The leaked documents referred to ongoing and highly sensitive operational activities by the AIVD in relation to terrorism. Leaking this material - including the transcripts of phone taps - posed serious risks to the investigations, prosecutors argued. The court agreed, and said the leaking of the information could have posed serious dangers to Dutch society. The presiding judge made clear that the suspicion could not be discounted that Ben A. had deliberately infiltrated the AIVD to steal information.

Prosecutors said Ben A. leaked a number of documents, including the contents of an intercepted telephone conversation to Hofstadgroep suspect A. H. on 5 August 2004. He sent another Hofstad suspect M.B. a progress report on the AIVD's investigation into the group.
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Europe
Van Gogh killers' informant denies charges
2005-12-13
A witness denied at the trial of terrorist suspects in Amsterdam on Monday that he was an informer for the security service AIVD.

Saleh B., 28, also rejected the suggestion he gave one of the accused men, Jason W., four hand grenades, one of which were used against police at W.'s home on the Antheunisstraat in The Hague on 10 November. Several members of a police raiding party were injured. After a day-long siege, Jason W. and a second accused man, Ismail A., surrendered.

Mohammed B., 27 - the man convicted of killing filmmaker Theo van Gogh - and 13 other Muslims with Moroccan backgrounds are on trial in Amsterdam charged with membership of
the Hofstadgroep, which the authorities claim was a terrorist network.

W. alleged that Saleh B. had given him a plastic bag, containing the grenades, to mind. B. did not deny he had been in the home on the Antheunisstraat, but he denied providing the explosives.

While W. accused the state's witness of lying, DNA evidence presented to the court indicated no traces from B. were found on the three remaining grenades.

B. said he used to have a stall at a street market in The Hague and he got to know W. because the accused was interested in the business.

Turning to suggestions in the media that he was an informant or agent provocateur, B. denied he was working for the AIVD when he became acquainted with W. He did, however, concede the AIVD had approached him in the past but the contact soon ended.

B. was sparing with his answers on Monday and repeatedly made use of his right not to testify about certain matters. He was arrested on 28 October on suspicion of being part of a terrorist organisation after media reports questioned whether he had been shielded by the security service.
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Europe
Dutch interpreter faces 8 years over leaks to terrorists
2005-12-01
A prosecutor asked a court in Rotterdam on Wednesday to impose an eight-year sentence on an interpreter accused of leaking information to suspected terrorists. Outman Ben A. was employed by the Dutch security service AIVD and transcribed tapped telephone conversations. He is accused of leaking details of the investigation into the Hofstadgroep to members of the group in 2004.

The authorities say several young Dutch Muslims arrested on terrorist charges in recent years are members of the Hofstadgroep. Mohammed B., the man who shot and killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was said to be a member. Ben A. is also accused of sending an email to Said Bellari of the Dutch-Moroccan education group UMAH to warn that the phone of a person Bellari had been in contact with was bugged. Bellari is seen as a supporter of the legal Arab European League (AEL). The prosecution claimed that the information allegedly leaked by Ben A. was widely circulated among people viewed by the AIVD as suspects. The interpreter denies the charges.
Nope. Wadn't me. Sumboddy else typed that stuff on my PC ... um ... an' used my voice on the phone an' all ...
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Europe
Suspect alleges 'agent provocateur' supplied siege grenades
2005-10-31
AMSTERDAM — The lawyer representing Samir A., 19, has sought to question a man, named only as S.B., about his alleged links with the security service AIVD. Lawyer Victor Koppe suggested to an appeal court on Monday that the AIVD - via S.B. - may have had foreknowledge of a robbery at a supermarket in Rotterdam in 2004. The robbery led to a police search of A.'s home. A. was one of the young Dutch Muslims arrested by anti-terror police earlier in October on suspicion of planning terror attacks.

Monday's court case involves the State's appeal against the decision by another court earlier this year to clear him of charges relating to his arrest in 2004 after the robbery. He was charged in that case with plotting to attack parliament buildings in The Hague, the Borssele nuclear power station and the AIVD's headquarters. The prosecution said plans of the buildings were found in A.'s house when police searched it.

The judge decided Samir had an above average interest in religious violence but there was insufficient evidence he was planning terror attacks. The prosecution is appealing this decision. A. has decided to remain silent during the appeal because he claims the prosecution has no real evidence against him.

Koppe suggested on Monday that the AIVD was aware of the armed robbery. "I don't rule out that the robbery was carried out with the foreknowledge of the AIVD," he said. The lawyer wants to question 28-year-old S.B. from Rotterdam to verify whether he is an informer working for the AIVD. S.B. was arrested last Friday in relation to the armed robbery in Rotterdam and involvement with the Hofstadgroep. The authorities allege the Hofstadgroep is a Muslim terror group.

The latest arrest came after a media report suggested B. may be working for the AIVD. It suggested that B. was involved in the supermarket robbery and had contact with Samir and other members of the alleged Muslim terror group, the Hofstadgroep.

Jason W., another alleged member of the Hofstadgroep, has claimed S.B. provided him with hand grenades last year. Two police officers were seriously injured by hand grenades during a raid to capture Jason W. and another man in The Hague last November. The two suspects were overpowered after a 14-hour siege.

The prosecutor told the appeals court that S.B. was not arrested until Friday because he had been difficult to trace. S.B. has refused to answer questions so it has not been possible to establish whether he has had contact with the AIVD. Following his arrest, the national office of the public prosecutor's office (OM) said there was no evidence S.B. was working for the security service.

Separately on Monday, Hogeschool Leiden announced Samir A. would not be allowed to continue his chemistry studies there.
So, in a nutshell, A's mouthpiece sez B (aka S.B.) was a stoolie working for AVID. B gave grenades to W who is in the same group as A, and stuck up a market after telling AVID about it. B ain't talking now. A has a above average interest in jihad and isn't gonna get his chemistry merit badge anytime soon. That certainly clears things up.
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Europe
Man detained on military exercise grounds
2005-09-15
AMSTERDAM — Dutch military police arrested an intruder on a military training ground last week, it was reported on Wednesday. Police found a large quantity of munitions during a search of the man's home in the town of Oss. The search turned up 45 training grenades in an ammunition box, smoke grenades and a heavier type of training grenade. Police discovered a self-made bomb made out of one of the heavy training grenades on the balcony of the apartment.
All you'd have to do would be to tape a bunch of nails to one.
The 29-year-old native Dutchman was arrested last week after he was spotted by a sergeant on De Oirschotse Heide training ground, which is closed to the public. He told investigators he is a convert to Islam and that he has links to the Hofstadgroep. He also claimed he had stolen the grenades on an earlier occasion from the training ground, a police spokesperson for the public prosecutor told the media.
Either they store grenades on the grounds or he was picking up stuff that had been "misplaced". Friends in National Guard have told me stories about burying training munitions that they had signed out but never used. Didn't want to go through all the paperwork of turning it back in. Might be the same here.
The Hofstadgroep is described as an Muslim terror group by the authorities. Several young Muslim men are awaiting trial for alleged membership of the group. Mohammed B., the man jailed for life for the murdering filmmaker Theo van Gogh, is charged with membership of the group.
Prosecutors said on Tuesday that the number of charges faced by Mohammed B. and the other suspects has been reduced. Specific allegations of plotting to kill politicians have been dropped.
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Europe
Hofstadgroep terrorism suspects to remain in jail
2005-08-02
The eleven young men in jail on suspicion of membership in the Hofstadgroep terror network will remain in detention until the next pro forma hearing in late September, a Rotterdam court ruled on Friday.
The revolving door seems to be turning much more slowly these days...
The court also ruled their attorneys could question witnesses including the head of the state security service AIVD and MPs Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders. The court found there were sufficient objections to releasing the eleven men.
Roughly nine rucksacks full of objections, I'd wager.
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Terror Networks & Islam
What is the Hofstadgroep?
2005-07-29
So far, 23 people are believed to be involved with the suspected terror network the Hofstadgroep. Most are in jail. One is Mohammed B, convicted this week of murdering filmmaker Theo van Gogh. He and 11 others face criminal proceedings...
This is a nice primer from Expatica on the alleged members of Holland's most notorious terror cell. Note: Hofstadgroep roughly translates as "Center City Group" and is based in The Hague. Also, Expatica has that annoying Euro habit of only using last initials, and I didn't feel like looking them up. Sorry.
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