Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who backed the permanent ban on Pakistan’s Islamic extremist Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, on Wednesday announced that the TLP leader Saad Hussain Rizvi who “put fatwa” on him, will be prosecuted in the Netherlands. Along with the Pakistani political leader, the extremist religious leader mullah Muhammad Ashraf Arif Jalali will also be tried in the court for instigation of the murder of the Dutch member of Parliament via video and text messages as well as social media.

The court document accused the two Pakistanis of “attempt to provoke the murder of Geert Wilders, member of the House of Representatives; act concurring with incitement and threat.” The 55-year-old and the 29-year-old, respectively, called on their followers to commit the crime making religious claims that they will be “rewarded in the afterlife” for the act, the Dutch media is reporting.

The religious preacher and the TLP leader have both been named as suspects who will be tried on charges of public incitement for an attempt to murder the Dutch politician Wilders. The ruling came following a hearing related to the investigation into the matter on August 29, last year. The court found that the two suspects “attempted to induce one or more others through gifts and/or promises to murdering Geert Wilders.”

 3 million Pakistani rupees reward for murder of Dutch lawmaker

TLP leader and the religious Pakistani preacher recorded the video in which they offered a reward of 3 million Pakistani rupees (approximately 21 thousand euros at the time) for the murder of Wilders in 2018. Under the Dutch law, the Pakistani nationals “incited criminal offense” by the use of images and videos.

“The court assumes that the video was most likely not recorded in the Netherlands (but in Pakistan). It is certain that the video was shown in the Netherlands and is aimed at a person living in the Netherlands,” the court said. “This means that the consequences, namely the chance that someone in the Netherlands will commit or be incited to murder or another criminal offense, or that reasonable fear arises in the Netherlands as a result of the threat, occurs on Dutch territory and in the Dutch legal order,” it added. The Dutch court further said in its ruling that on the basis of Article 2 of the Criminal Code, “all charged facts fall under the jurisdiction of Dutch criminal law.

The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) previously threatened a Dutch ambassador in Pakistan over views of Geert that they call “blasphemous.” A former Pakistani cricketer, Khalid Latif, 37, has also been sentenced to 12 years in prison for offering money to assassinate the Netherlands’ most prominent politician. The latter offered a reward of three million Pakistani rupees (€21,000; £18,000) for the murder of the Party for the Freedom chief. The controversy involves anger surrounding Geert’s cartoon contest devised in 2018 in which he urged people to send in cartoons and caricatures of Islamic Prophet Mohammad. The dutch lawmaker eventually cancelled the contest due to “death threats and concerns other people could be put at risk."