Dutch officer to be charged for leaking MP’s security plans

Dutch prosecutors said Monday they will bring charges against a policeman accused of leaking information about the security surrounding controversial far-right MP Geert Wilders.

The surveillance officer is accused of “communicating confidential or operational police information six times with a third person (women/girlfriends),” said Frans Zonneveld, spokesman for the prosecution service.

He also “carried out searches in the police system for private purposes.”

Last year, the fiercely anti-Islam Wilders and his far-right Freedom Party suspended all public activities for about 10 days in February as the police investigated the agent who had been arrested.

He was identified by the prosecution service only as Faris K., and was held for “breaking professional secrets”.

According to Dutch media reports, the officer had allegedly leaked information about Wilders’ movements to a Moroccan gang.

The firebrand MP, who has courted controversy with his hardline anti-Islam, anti-immigrant stance and his incendiary insults against Moroccans and Turks, has long been under 24-hour police protection. But tensions had escalated ahead of general elections in March 2017.

Netherlands is no stranger to political violence, even though the small country of just 17 million people has largely gained a reputation for tolerance.

Flamboyant far-right leader Pim Fortuyn was assassinated just nine days before Dutch elections in 2002, shocking the country to the core.

Just two years later in November 2004, filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim radical.