Dutch court rejects bid to dump judge in MP’s hate trial

Dutch judges on Friday threw out a bid by lawyers for anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders to replace one of the judges in his hate speech trial after the defence accused her of bias.
“The request is denied,” said Judge Peter Hans Littooy, who chaired a panel set up to hear the complaint.
“It’s extremely important that judges are impartial in this trial. We are convinced that this is indeed the case,” Littooy said.
Wilders, 53, faces charges of insulting a racial group and inciting racial hatred after comments he made about Moroccans living in the Netherlands.
Due to run until November 25, the trial focuses in part on a comment made at a March 2014 local government election rally, when Wilders asked supporters whether they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands”.
When the crowd shouted back “Fewer! Fewer!” a smiling Wilders answered: “We’re going to organise that.”
Defence lawyers Thursday demanded judge Elianne van Rens be replaced, after she followed a tough line of questioning with the defence’s first witness, law professor and philosopher Paul Cliteur.
Defence lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops told the panel Friday “that there has to be no doubt that the judges have to be impartial.”
“Mr Wilders has the impression that this is not the case,” Knoops said.
But public prosecutor Wouter Bos hit back, saying “it wouldn’t be a Wilders trial without a demand that a judge be replaced,” referring to similar attempts by the populist politician in an earlier case in 2011.
Wilders has dubbed the case a “political trial” and snubbed the hearings at a high-security court near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
The Netherlands will hold general elections in March and Wilders’s far-right Freedom Party (PVV) is riding high in the polls, a close second to the ruling Liberal VVD party.
His 2014 statements were met with outrage, including from the small but vocal Dutch Muslim community. An avalanche of 6,400 complaints followed.
A verdict is expected on December 9.
If found guilty, Wilders could face a two-year jail term or a fine of more than 20,000 euros ($22,100), but experts said a punishment on this scale was unlikely.