Anti-mosque arsonist ‘a terrorist’, Dutch authorities say

Translated from daily Tubantia, in Overijssel province in the Netherlands, today:

ENSCHEDE – The 33-year-old man who on Saturday threw a Molotov cocktail at the mosque to the Tweede Emmastraat in Enschede is suspected by the public prosecutor of “arson with a terrorist intent.” …

Saturday around half past ten Molotov cocktails were thrown at the mosque at the Tweede Emmastraat in Enschede. There were at that time people present, including children.

The 33-year-old Enschede man was arrested in the night from Saturday to Sunday. His home was then searched. Objects there were confiscated but the public prosecutor is not saying what. The police investigation is still underway. The public prosecutor says the crime “involved several Molotov cocktails”, without mentioning numbers. No one else has been arrested so far. The public prosecutor would not say how the suspect had possibly contact with accomplices. …

There is terrorist intent when “the accused had the intention to make afraid some of the population’, the prosecution says. This is the case, according to the public prosecution.

Dutch NOS TV reports today (translated):

According to De Bruin, the spokesperson of the national prosecutor in recent history it had not happened before that an incident at a mosque got the label “terrorism”. “This is a serious offense where one gets significantly longer imprisonment sentences for.”

Indeed. So far the label “terrorist” was only used when Muslims were suspected of crime.

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