AMSTERDAM - The government has succeeded in saving a Dutch terrorist of Iranian descent from the death penalty in the Islamic Republic.
In response to protests from the Dutch government, Iranian authorities confirmed last week the man's death sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment, Dutch associated press ANP reported.
A spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry said that based on the government's opposition to capital punishment, the Netherlands always works to save Dutch nationals from the death penalty in other countries.
Newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported at the weekend that the man was recruited from Leeuwarden in the north of the Netherlands to join the Iranian opposition movement, Mujahedeen Khalq. He travelled in 1997 to Iraq, before crossing the Iranian border.
He was arrested on 13 April 2000 in connection with two failed assassination attempts on a former Iranian minister. The then Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Jozias van Aartsen was informed of the arrest during a visit to Iran in May 2000.
The EU considers Mujahedeen Khalq to be a terrorist organisation. The movement was known in the Netherlands as Solidarity with Iranian People (SIM), but was forced to leave the country in 2002 under pressure from the Dutch government.
Despite this, the incident seemed to lend credence to growing concerns that the Netherlands is a breeding ground of Islamic extremists. The secret service, AIVD, has recently estimated that 100 Muslim radicals or more are active on Dutch soil and several mosques have been accused of helping finance terrorist organisations. Eindhoven, in particular, has been pinpointed as a hotbed of extremists.
But two recent terror trials resulted in acquittals of all 16 suspects. The arrests were carried out on tip-offs from the secret service, AIVD, but the Rotterdam Court ruled that the evidence was insufficient. The AIVD refused to reveal its information source, preventing full verification of its allegations.
Furthermore, in the first trial, the court also ruled that there was insufficient evidence to convict four suspects on charges they were involved in an al-Qaeda plot to bomb the US embassy in Paris.
Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has since lodged legislative proposals aimed at getting tougher in the war against terrorism. In particular, the Christian Democrat CDA minister wants confidential information from the AIVD to be accepted as evidence in court.
The CDA, Liberal VVD and Democrat D66 coalition Cabinet has also approved Donner's proposal to make it a prosecutable offence to recruit volunteers for Jihad, the Islamic holy war, a Novum news report said. The government is also pushing legislation allowing it to ban terrorist organisations on Dutch soil.
