A Case Reflecting the Dangers Faced by Persecuted Christians.
On August 29th, 2023, Dutch prosecutors demanded a 12-year prison sentence for a former Pakistani cricketer accused of incitement to murder Netherlands’ popular politician Geert Wilders.
The suspect, identified by Wilders as Khalid Latif, is accused of offering a bounty of some €21,000 to anybody who killed Wilders. Latif did not appear in the high-security courtroom in Amsterdam for the trial. He is believed to be in Pakistan.
Prosecutors said that a video posted online in 2018 showed a famous Pakistani cricketer offering money for killing Wilders. The lawmaker has lived under round-the-clock protection for years due to repeated threats to his life, sparked by his fierce criticism of Islam and his vocal support for persecuted Christians.
The threat emerged after Wilders announced plans to organize a competition of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims consider any depictions of Muhammad to be blasphemous. Ultimately, the contest did not proceed, but the plan sparked outrage in the Muslim world.
“The video message was extra toxic because it was issued during a period in which there was a lot of hatred and anger towards Geert Wilders,” the Public Prosecution Service in The Hague said in its written statement.
The prosecution office said that killing Wilders would not just have “caused unbearable pain to his loved ones. It would also have been an attack on the rule of law itself.”
Wilders said in court that a conviction would send a “powerful signal to all other others who issue threats: we won’t accept it.”
In comments directed specifically at Latif, he added: ‘As long as I’m living and breathing, you won’t stop me. Your call to kill me and pay money for it is abject and will not silence me.’
An international warrant has been issued for Latif’s arrest. Dutch prosecutors stated they had been attempting to contact him since 2018, initially as a witness and later to answer the charges. However, they reported receiving no response from the Pakistani authorities.”
