Lonely, angry, drunk and then regretting threats to politicians: ‘What did I type?’ | Politics

One was lonely, the other is an alcoholic, another went ‘through a dark period’ and another ‘just wanted to troll online’. And there was a lot of ‘corona frustration’. “Why did I call the cabinet a Nazi pigsty? Well, I think that’s pretty exaggerated.”

A variety of statements and invariably regret: the judge in The Hague heard it on Monday from five men, who had to answer one by one for threatening texts online addressed to Prime Minister Rutte, among others, and ministers Sigrid Kaag, Hugo de Jonge and Wopke Hoekstra.

Sipping from his can of Red Bull, Soedish P. (34) from The Hague says it was ‘nothing personal’ when he wrote on Instagram that D66 MP Sjoerd Sjoerdsma should come before a ‘firing squad’. “Or hang by the neck, traitor, soulless coward.” P. nu: ,,Yes, now I also think: what have you been typing, man?”

P. hopes for a warning as punishment, but the judge does not worry about that. “You follow the news, don’t you? The number of threats is spiraling out of control.” In fact, it doubled last year the number of reports of threats against politicians to 1125 cases. The majority was for PVV leader Geert Wilders, but the number of threats is ‘consistently high’, says the Public Prosecution Service.

Rene F. (39) was one of the threats. Now he sits neatly in a suit in the suspect’s bench and sobs and stammers that he cannot remember writing on Twitter: ‘Sigrid Kaag, you will die from my bare hands!’ And that Hugo de Jonge had to be ‘cleared’, just like his family. Rene now says: ,,I can’t hear it again, I have such a huge sense of guilt.” But during that period he drank ‘two bottles of vodka’ a day. Because the strange thing is, says Rene, that as a consultant in the anti-discrimination sector he ‘pursues the same goals as Mrs Kaag’. But corona came, his work came to a standstill, then there was the bottle. Now the regret.

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That also applies to Rudy S. (57) from The Hague, he says. At least. “What do you regret?” asked the judge. ,,That you have been caught perhaps?” Rudy: ,,Yes, that too of course.”

But also that he ‘hoped’ that ‘a Dutch Breivik would clean up the Nazi pigsty’ that the cabinet was, according to him.

The corona period cut into it, explains Rudy. He has a WIA benefit, but a part-time job as a photographer was lost due to the lockdown, his mother’s funeral was made more difficult, and visiting his disabled brother was made difficult by those ‘ridiculous visitor arrangements’. “I also felt threatened by politicians. Hugo de Jonge who said to go from house to house and from arm to arm… I have a fear of needles and doubts about that vaccination event.” Still, he also says: ,,My texts were quite exaggerated.’ ‘

Giovanni P. (21) also thinks so in retrospect, he ‘didn’t even know’ GroenLinks Member of Parliament Kauthar Bouchallikht when he suggested that he could be ‘punctured’. Was just a song from a rap song. ,,I was just trolling a bit on social media, looking for a bit of negative attention.” He spent a lot of time with PVV members and had ‘a bad image of Muslims’. ,,But that has become less.” P. still lives at home, wants to become an entrepreneur and will ‘never do it again’.

This afternoon, the judge will mainly hand out community service, from 40 to 80 hours, as well as fines of 300 to 600 euros. One suspect gets a week in jail. The unemployed Thomas V. (35) is fined. In ‘a severe depression’ he threatened the Turkish ambassador. “I have had a mild psychosis, I suspect. A friend of mine too, who is in a wheelchair and regularly drives himself into the canal. I wasn’t good to myself during that period, but I can’t justify it.”

The judge says almost apologetically: “I have to send a signal to society that this is not possible. We also see messages: that judge should hang himself. What do you think this does? And everyone here says: this is the last time.” Thomas: ,,Really for me.”