Covid conspiracy theorist Willem Engel acquitted in sedition case

The court in The Hague acquitted activist Willem Engel of sedition and ignoring a police order. A community service sentence of 90 hours and a conditionally suspended money fine of 250 euros was recommended by prosecutors.

The 47-year-old foreman of the action group Viruswaarheid, translated to Virus Truth in English, was suspected of sedition via Facebook during a demonstration in the city center of The Hague against the coronavirus emergency law in October 2020. He said in a livestream that people should arrest police officers.

However, the court does not call those statements inflammatory, partly because he emphatically called for no use of violence and no resistance. "The court finds that it cannot be proven that the suspect incited violence against public authorities, given the content and purport of the statement," the ruling reads.

Engel also allegedly ignored the police order to leave The Hague after the mayor banned the demonstration. However, the court sees that differently, too, because Engel did walk away when he was asked to. The fact that he was arrested shortly after does not mean that he was not planning to leave, according to the court. "The time period between the order to leave the city and the containment of the group of demonstrators and the subsequent arrest is too short for this."

This criminal trial is separate from an earlier one, which came after many people filed reports with the police. The court in Rotterdam largely acquitted Engel and sentenced him to a conditionally suspended prison sentence of one month for sedition. That case concerned a series of messages about the Coronavirus on social media. This case is still on appeal.