Leiden man sentenced for sending death threats to left-wing party leaders

An 18-year-old from Leiden, Wesley van K., has been sentenced to 30 days in prison, 25 of them conditionally suspended, and 30 hours of community service for sending death threats via Instagram to the party leaders of DENK, Stephan van Baarle, and GroenLinks-PvdA, Frans Timmermans. The summary judge in The Hague found the messages had been sent by Van K. Having already spent five days in detention, he will not serve the remainder of his sentence in prison.

Last week, an Instagram message was sent to Stephan van Baarle containing explicit death threats, including claims the sender would knock him out, drag him into a van, hang him, and cut him open, and calling the politician “kankermoslim,” which means “cancer muslim.”

The case was reported to the Team Threatened Politicians, leading to the suspect’s arrest. Police later discovered a private message on the suspect’s phone directed at Frans Timmermans in which the sender allegedly threatened to kill the politician and said security would be powerless to stop him.

The Public Prosecution Service had called for a two-month prison sentence, with one month suspended. Both party leaders reportedly told prosecutors they felt seriously threatened. In determining the sentence, the prosecution also considered that the suspect had previously been sentenced by the juvenile court in June to 100 hours of community service for, among other offenses, aggravated assault.

The suspect claimed that the message to Van Baarle was sent by a friend, whose name he refused to disclose, and declined to comment on the message to Timmermans. His lawyer argued there is no proof his client sent the message to the DENK politician and contended that the message to Timmermans was obtained illegally, as police should have obtained prior authorization before searching the phone.

The judge noted that procedures for searching the phone were not entirely followed, and this was taken into account when determining the sentence. Nonetheless, she was convinced that the suspect sent the messages, calling them two extremely serious death threats against party leaders. “In a democracy like the Netherlands, this is unacceptable. It crosses the line,” she said.

The judge noted that the suspect will be able to vote for the first time on Wednesday, as he mentioned during the hearing. “That is the proper way to show support for one politician while disagreeing with another,” she said.