Rapper faces new trial for threatening PVV leader Geert Wilders

A Rotterdam rapper who wrote a text apparently threatening PVV leader Geert Wilders should be retried on the same charges, the High Court ruled on Tuesday.

Mohammed B was found not guilty of threatening the MP with death on appeal, but the High Court said the appeal court failed to argue its decision properly when it dismissed the charges in 2010.

The appeal court had said it was not proven that the rapper had placed the text of the rap with a video clip on YouTube which included the sound of a pistol shot. The CD version does not include the sound of a gun going off.

No joke

The text includes the rapper saying it will be ‘bam bam’ if he meets Wilders. The rapper also calls on Wilders to take back his words if he wants to stay alive and says ‘this is no joke. Last night I dreamed I chopped your head off.’

The appeal court ruled that even though Wilders had felt threatened by the combination of words and music, there was no evidence B himself had uploaded the video to YouTube.

However, the High Court said the appeal court had failed to explain properly why B could not be convicted on the basis of the text alone and ordered the case to be heard again.

Hyves message

In a second case, however, the High Court upheld a lower court decision to sentence a 15-year-old boy to 50 hours community service for sending Wilders a threatening message.

The boy sent an item using the Hyves social networking site in 2010 suggesting Wilders jump from the Euromast tower in Rotterdam and describing how his ‘brains will be all over the ground within a week’.

The high court agreed with the lower court that the text constituted a death threat.

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