(NL Times) A former civil servant who was going to testify in the hate speech trial against PVV leader Geert Wilders decided to not testify after all, according to Wilders’ lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops. The man is afraid that he will be prosecuted by the Public Prosecution Service, the lawyer said to AD.
According to Knoops, the witness was employed by the Ministry of Security and Justice in 2011. He then overheard a conversation between then-Minister Ivo Opstelten and the secretary general of the ministry at the time, Joris Demmink. According to the witness, Opstelten explicitly said that the Public Prosecution Service must prosecute Wilders “because he is too much in our way.”
The official went to Wilders with the story and recorded it in a statement at a notary’s office. The plan was that he would testify before the court behind closed doors, but according to Knoops he no longer wants to.
