Russian secret services involved in Theo van Gogh's murder: sources say in documentary

Russian secret services played a role in the murder of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam 20 years ago, a Chechen arms dealer and other sources revealed in the documentary De Wapenroute by Sinan Can and Daniëlle van Lieshout. The documentary follows the trial of the murder weapon - an expensive pistol from Croatia that somehow ended up in the hands of Mohammed Bouyeri, the Telegraaf reports.

Bouyeri, a member of the jihadist Hofstadgroep, shot the controversial columnist and director Theo van Gogh dead in Amsterdam-Oost on 2 November 2004. It was the first jihadist murder in the Netherlands. How Bouyeri, a man who lived on welfare benefits, got his hands on the murder weapon - a pistol worth at least 2,500 euros - remains a mystery.

The Croatian firearm rolled off the production line in the HS factory near Zagreb in 1998. That is the last confirmed fact about this pistol. Interpol told the Dutch police that the pistol was stolen in Zagreb in 2000. But according to the documentary makers, that’s not true. They discovered that the pistol was shipped on 10 March 1999 with a legal shipment of 3,809 other pistols with the letterbox company Liberty Enterprises on the Virgin Islands as the destination.

However, the shipment of weapons did not reach its final destination. Some of the firearms disappeared from a container in the port of Rotterdam. Many of these weapons later popped up in the murders of prominent figures throughout Europe.

The police questioned several members of the Hofstadgroep and several jihadists from the Czech Republic about supplying Bouyeri with the weapon. Among the suspects questioned were Marad J. from Schiedam and Chechen arms dealer Borz-Ali I., though both were later released due to lack of evidence.

The documentary makers managed to track Borz-Ali I. down for an interview. “No, it was absolutely not me who supplied the weapon,” the now 65-year-old man said. He thinks Bouyeri got the gun from Marad J. “I am 99 percent certain that he supplied the weapon.”

Borz-Ali I. added that Russian secret services were also involved. “They influenced Marad. And through him, they influenced that Moroccan, that Bouyeri. The Russian secret services will stop at nothing as long as they achieve their goal.”

According to him, Russia achieved two goals by supplying weapons to Dutch jihadists. It diverted attention from Russian atrocities in the Czech Republic and gave Chechen rebels, who were also jihadists, the blame for the murder.

Can and Van Lieshout heard similar claims about the Russian secret services from other sources. One claimed that the letterbox company Liberty Enterprises is also in Russian hands. They found no hard evidence to back these claims.