Pakistani ex-cricketer gets 12 years in jail for threatening far-right leader
37-year-old Khalid Latif, who lives in Pakistan and has not attended any stage of the trial or been detained in the Netherlands, was sentenced in abstentia.
Firebrand anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders waits for the court to deliver it's verdict against a former Pakistan cricketer accused of incitement to kill, at the high security court building near Schiphol airport. / Photo: AP
A Dutch court sentenced a former Pakistani cricketer to 12 years in prison after he was tried in absentia for urging people to murder radical Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders.
The court ruled on Monday that the statement by 37-year-old Khalid Latif - who lives in Pakistan and has not attended any stage of the trial or been detained in the Netherlands - should be regarded as incitement to murder, sedition and threat.
Prosecutors said Latif posted a video in 2018, offering a reward for the murder of Wilders. That video came after Wilders said he planned to hold a contest for cartoons depicting caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Mohammad. The competition was later cancelled.
Images of the Prophet Mohammad are forbidden in Islam as a form of idolatry.
Reuters was not immediately able to reach Latif - who received a five-year ban from cricket in 2017 over a spot-fixing scandal - for comment. Latif, 37, captained the Pakistan team in the 2010 Asian Games.
Wilders, 60, is one of Europe's most controversial far-right leaders and has been a key figure in shaping the immigration debate in the Netherlands over the past two decades, although he has never been in government.
His Freedom Party (PVV) is the third-largest in the Dutch parliament and is the main opposition party. Wilders has lived under constant police protection since 2004.
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