The trial of Dutch anti-Islamist politician Geert Wilders has been adjourned until tomorrow to decide on concerns raised by defence lawyers about the impartiality of the judges.
Dutch anti-Islam MP Mr Wilders is on trial for inciting hate, but invoked his right to silence today, prompting the presiding judge to say it appeared he was again trying to avoid discussion about his views, sparking concerns for an unfair process from his lawyer.
The controversial politician risks up to a year in jail or a €7,600 fine for calling Islam ‘fascist’ and likening the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf.
The hearing in Amsterdam was opened by presiding judge Jan Moors with Mr Wilders seated in the front row of the courtroom next to his advocate Bram Moszkovicz.
Mr Wilders, 47, is charged with five counts of giving religious offence to Muslims and inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims and people of non-Western immigrant origin, particularly Moroccans.
In comments made between October 2006 and March 2008 in Dutch newspapers and on Internet forums, prosecutors say that Mr Wilders described Islam as ‘the sick ideology of Allah and Mohammed’ and its holy book as ‘the Mein Kampf of a religion that seeks to eliminate others’.
Among the exhibits is Mr Wilders' 17-minute film, ‘Fitna’, alleged to depict Islam as a force bent on destroying the West and whose screening in the Netherlands in 2008 prompted protests in much of the Muslim world.
Mr Wilders arrived at the Amsterdam district court minutes before the start of the hearing.
About a dozen protestors had gathered outside the court building with a large placard that blames Mr Wilders for ‘division and polarisation’, as a strong contingent of police, some in riot gear, kept watch.
‘The different colours of our society is what makes us rich, but that is being threatened by Mr Wilders,’ Mustafa Ayranci, one of the group's organisers and head of the Turkish labour association, said.
Mr Wilders' Party for Freedom came third in 9 June elections with 24 seats out of 150 in the Dutch lower house of parliament.
Under a coalition deal being finalised, his PVV will provide a minority cabinet of the Christian Democrats and liberals with the majority they need to pass decisions through parliament in return for a voice in policy formation.
