13 July 2005

AMSTERDAM — The national detective unit has uncovered a self-made bomb during the arrest of a 17-year-old youth in the Netherlands

The police carried out the operation at the home of suspect's parents in Amsterdam on Monday evening. The teen had come to police attention during the investigation in the Hofstadgroep.

The police stress the youth is not believed to be a member of the alleged terror group. Investigations are continuing to try and establish what contacts he had with the Hofstadgroep and what he intended to do with the bomb.

The teen is to appear before a children's court on Thursday.

News agency ANP reported that his parents are of British and Dutch descent. The youth converted to Islam at the age of 14 and quickly became radicalised.

An initial examination of the device indicated it was "potentially dangerous", a police spokesperson said on Tuesday. It consisted of a cardboard bar filled with gunpowder, small bullets and a detonator.

Sources close to the investigation told ANP that intercepted telephone calls showed the youth seemed to have been out to get Independent right-wing MP Geert Wilders. 

The MP also confirmed on Wednesday that the teen, who is the administrator of radical Islamic newsgroups, was suspected of threatening  him via the internet.

Several young Muslim men are being prosecuted for alleged membership of the Hofstadgroep, which the authorities claim is a home-grown Muslim terror organisation.

Mohammed B., the man who killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004, is said by prosecutors to have been an important member of the Hofstadgroep.

B. is a 27-year-old Amsterdammer of Moroccan descent. The prosecution's case in relation to the Van Gogh killing finished yesterday as B. made clear he did not intend to mount a defence.

Having taken full responsibility for the killing, B. also told his trial he would kill again in the name of Islam if given the opportunity.

The prosecution has demanded that B. be jailed for life and the three-judge panel will give its ruling on 26 July.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2005]

Subject: Dutch news