Six arrested for Amsterdam unrest 22/10/2007 00:00

22 October 2007

THE HAGUE (AFP) - Police have arrested six alleged arsonists in an Amsterdam suburb in the wake of a week of violence following the death of a young man of Moroccan origin, a police source said Monday.

"Police have again arrested three men suspected of intending to light fires" on Sunday evening, Amsterdam police said in a statement. The young men, 16 to 27 years old, had filled up an oil drum with petrol and one was carrying an illegal firecracker when arrested, it added.

Police arrested three other youths on Saturday in possession of a bottle filled with petrol.

No vehicle was set ablaze overnight Sunday but some 20 cars have been set on fire over the past week around Slotervaart, a western Amsterdam suburb with a large Moroccan immigrant community.

Police arrested a number of suspects on Wednesday but all were freed due to lack of evidence.

Bilal B., a 22-year-old Dutch man of Moroccan descent suffering from psychiatric problems, was killed by police on October 14. He was shot at the police station after stabbing two agents, seriously injuring them.

The following night, a group of some 30 youths had set cars on fire and threw stones at the police station in spite of an appeal by Slotervaart's acting mayor, Ahmed Marcouch, for parents to keep their children at home.

Marcouch, a former police officer and the spokesman for Amsterdam mosques, immediately called for a meeting of parents and children in the area to explain why and how Bilal B. had died.

The following night, Marcouch walked the streets of Slotervaart with social workers and asked the cleric at the mosque to appeal for calm.

The neighbourhood is where Mohammed Bouyeri grew up, the young Moroccan-Dutch islamist who killed Dutch director Theo van Gogh in November 2004.

[Copyright AFP 2007]

Subject: Dutch news