Man arrested in Amsterdam for threatening PVV leader Wilders

On Friday evening, the Amsterdam police arrested a man in a house who had threatened PVV leader Geert Wilders via a message on X. The arrest was ordered by the public prosecutor's office, a police spokeswoman stated. She said it was a red-handed situation but did not go into detail. The man is in custody and is being questioned. He will be brought before the examining magistrate on Monday.

Wilders himself thanked the police on X on Sunday for their quick action. “Many thanks to the Amsterdam police unit who detained a person in a home this weekend over a threat to kill me. Thanks to the team of threatened politicians of the Hague police, I could sign the report quickly. Without the police, I would have been outlawed.”

The police, however, would not comment on what exactly the suspect's statements were or whether it was a death threat. Nor did the police want to say anything about the suspect, the circumstances, and possible motives.

Wilders has been under 24-hour security since 2004 because of serious death threats, mainly from Islamic circles. He has filed numerous complaints and denunciations, some of which have led to prosecution.

In September last year, Pakistani ex-cricketer Khalid Latif was sentenced to 12 years in prison by a Dutch judge for calling for the assassination of the PVV chairman in 2018. The Netherlands does not have an extradition treaty with Pakistan. Another Pakistani man who traveled to The Hague in 2018 to attack the PVV leader was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2021. Others who threatened Wilders, especially online, have been sentenced to short prison terms or community service in recent years.