Mohammed Bouyeri

Bouyeri was born 8 March 1978 in Amsterdam-Oost, the Netherlands, a second-generation Moroccan-Dutchman of Berber origin. At the age of 7, he moved to Slotervaart/Overtoomse Veld. He was considered to be a promising student; completed his higher secondary education at the Mondriaan Lyceum. He was a havo student, while many Moroccan youth in the Netherlands would only advance to lower vmbo education, including most of Bouyeri's class. A former teacher later described him as "timid and observant", determined to get his diploma. He was one of a few local Moroccan boys who got on well with the local police, who otherwise had very negative contact with the Muslim community. In 1994, a local youth center was torn down and replaced with a center for migrants, which Bouyeri and others in the community resented as it serviced adults rather than young people. == Education ==

In 1997, he began university at the Inholland Hogeschool of Applied Sciences in Diemen. He spent five years studying at the school, being involved in various courses, but finished none of them. He switched majors repeatedly, from accounting to business information technology, but did not put in much effort. In the Netherlands in the 1990s, foreign origin students faced higher than usual dropout rates at universities, contributed to by cultural adjustment problems and educational disadvantages they may face. In summer 2000, Bouyeri, alongside some other men, stormed the school's cafe and began a fight with the other patrons, deliberately attacking the Dutch people present. The cafe was disliked by the Muslim students of the school, who viewed it as excluding them. In 2001 Bouyeri got into a fight with a man who was dating one of his sisters. When the police arrived, Bouyeri was found to be holding a knife. Bouyeri attempted to stab one of the responding officers, before throwing the knife at their head. Bouyeri was sentenced to prison, which he served in a detention center in Almere, and was released towards the end of 2001. After his release from prison Bouyeri attempted to be a productive member of society. Around the time of his release, his mother died and the September 11 attacks occurred. During 2002 Bouyeri started a course in social teaching assistance at the Amsterdam Hogeschool of Applied Sciences, and started working at the , a community center in Slotervaart/Overtoomse Veld. Bouyeri campaigned for the opening of a youth center in the secondary school, but this plan was rejected by the authorities. He began to believe that Dutch society and its institutions were anti-Moroccan. == Radicalization ==

After his mother died in 2002 and his father remarried in 2003, he started to live according to strict interpretations of Sunni Islamic Sharia law. At university, he changed his major several times and left after five years without obtaining a degree. Bouyeri used the pen name "Abu Zubair" for writing and translating, under which he wrote radical texts. He often posted letters online and sent emails under this name. In the spring of 2002, he moved out of his parents' house to a small apartment in Slotermeer; after this, he became increasingly active online. He would produce pamphlets containing antisemitic and anti-Dutch content. Additionally, due to his strict adherence to Sharia, he could perform fewer and fewer tasks at . For example, he refused to serve alcoholic beverages and did not want to be present at activities attended by both women and men. Finally, he put an end to his activities at altogether. He grew a beard and began to wear a djellaba. He frequently visited the El Tawheed Mosque where he met other radical Sunnis, among whom was the suspected terrorist Samir Azzouz. He was part of the Hofstad Network. == Murder of Theo van Gogh ==

Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was an often polemic critic of several aspects and figures of Dutch society, including religion. In 2004, van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who had become a member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, directed a short film called Submission, Part I about Islam and violence against women. Bouyeri murdered van Gogh on the early morning of 2 November 2004 in front of the Amsterdam-Oost borough office (Dutch: stadsdeelkantoor) while van Gogh was bicycling to work. Bouyeri shot van Gogh eight times with a handgun and also wounded two bystanders. Wounded, van Gogh ran to the other side of the road and fell to the ground in the cycle lane. Bouyeri then walked up to van Gogh, who was still lying down, and shot him several more times at close range. Bouyeri then used a large knife to slit van Gogh's throat and attempted to decapitate him, after which he stabbed the knife deep into van Gogh's chest, reaching his spinal cord. He then used a fillet knife to attach a five-page note to van Gogh's body before fleeing. Arrest Following an exchange of gunfire with police, during which he was wounded with a shot to his leg, Bouyeri was arrested close to the scene of the crime shortly after its commission. When arrested, Bouyeri had on his person a farewell poem titled (). The poem is written as a standard Dutch rhyming poem. It expressed Bouyeri's desire to be killed by the police and become a martyr. In his interrogations, he exercised his right to remain silent. == Legal proceedings ==

On 11 November 2004, public prosecutor Leo de Wit charged Bouyeri for: • Murder • Attempted murder (of a police officer) • Attempted manslaughter (of bystanders and police officers) • Violation of the law on gun control • Suspicion of participation in a criminal organization with terrorist aims • Conspiracy to murder with a terrorist purpose against van Gogh, Representative Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the other people mentioned in the letter He was charged under the Netherlands' new anti-terrorism law. On 28 November, current affairs program Opsporing Verzocht broadcast a custody photograph of Bouyeri as part of a public appeal from the Public Prosecution Service to retrace his movements in the days prior to the attack on van Gogh. Bouyeri's lawyer, Peter Plasman, objected to the broadcast and sued the State and broadcaster AVRO in an Amsterdam court on grounds of violation of personal privacy. The prosecutor demanded that he be forcibly transported to the courthouse, which the court granted. Bouyeri's attorneys attended the trial, but they did not ask questions or make closing arguments. Bouyeri appeared before the court carrying a Quran under his arm. At the trial, Bouyeri expressed no remorse for the murder he admitted to having committed, telling van Gogh's mother, "I do not feel your pain. I do not have any sympathy for you. I cannot feel for you because I think you're a non-believer." Bouyeri also expressed that he would do it again if given the chance. Bouyeri also argued that "in the fight of the believers against the infidels, violence is approved by the prophet Muhammad." The prosecutor demanded life imprisonment for Bouyeri, stating, "The defendant rejects our democracy. He even wants to bring down our democracy. With violence. He is insistent. To this day. He sticks to his views with perseverance." On 26 July 2005, Bouyeri was sentenced to life in prison, which is the severest punishment under Dutch law. Unlike other European countries, life imprisonment carries no chance of parole in the Netherlands, with the only possibility for release being via a pardon by the reigning monarch. In 2014, the investigation was reopened to discuss whether Bouyeri could have had help. In 2017, Bouyeri barricaded himself in his jail's kitchen while threatening prison staff by saying that whoever forbade him from praying would get "a dagger between the ribs". In 2018, he relayed a hand-written book to politicians through a courier criticizing Richard Dawkins and inviting them to convert to Islam. == In popular culture ==

'' (The Scream) is a memorial for Theo van Gogh and a symbol of the freedom of speech. • South African artist Marlene Dumas drew a portrait of Bouyeri in 2005 that has been displayed in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. • Journalist Theodor Holman, one of van Gogh's best friends, wrote a film in 2014 called 2/11 – Het Spel van de Wolf (a reference to the date van Gogh was killed, 2 November; "The Game of the Wolf") suggesting that the CIA had been responsible for the killing, as he claimed they had pressured the Dutch secret service to not arrest Bouyeri, in order to use him to get to someone with ties to Al-Qaeda. == See also ==