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September 15, 2006
Netherlands: Islamist Samir's "Farewell Video" Is Broadcast
The image at left comes from a broadcast made on Dutch TV channel NOVA TV last night. The young man dressed like a jihadist is the notorious Samir Azzouz. It is part of his "farewell video" which was discovered by surveillance operatives of the Dutch intelligence services, AIVD.
When this video was found, it triggered a widespread alarm, and Azzouz and six other people were arrested on Friday October 18 last year. Those arrested, from locations in the Hague, Amsterdam and Almere, were suspected of being part of the radical Islamist association known as the "Hofstad Group".
The entire video lasts eight minutes, and is dreary. One thing Azzouz is not is an "inspiring" rhetorician. He reads his prepared script like a teenage school student reading an essay in class. Behind him is a gun, which appears to the Scorpion 61, which was recovered from a basement in the Hague on September 4.
Azzouz speaks in Arabic, and talks of an "act" which he has carried out. This gave AIVD enough cause to suspect he was planning an imminent suicide attack. Though amateur, it is clear that Azzouz is trying to copy the mannerisms and style of a jihadi martyr as seen in a more professionally made Al Qaeda video.
Before his arrest in October, Azzouz had apparently been trying to obtain explosives and weapons. Azzouz had been under surveilance since 2003, when he returned from Chechnya. He and another individual had tried to join Islamists fighting the Russians in January of that year, but both had been turned back at the border.
In October 2003, Azzouz had been arrested with four other individuals, suspected of planning a terrorist attack on Dutch soil. He was set free. He was arrested again in July 2004. During the arrest, machine gun cartridges, a bullet-proof vest, two fake bombs, a silencer and maps were recovered from his home. He was sent to trial in Rotterdam in 2005, and convicted of possessing illegal arms. A further charge, that of plotting to attack public buildings, fell through. Having spent time in jail, his three month sentence was considered "used up". He was acquitted on April 6.
Azzouz will be on trial next month. He has been in custody since his arrest last October, and will be facing charges of planning a terrorist attack with other co-defendants. He is scheduled to begin his trial on October 16.
Expatica translates some of the statements made on Azzouz's farewell testament. He says: "You crusaders support Bush when he said: Let the crusades begin. So we speak the language of the sword until you leave Muslims in peace."
In grandiose terms, Azzouz dedicates the video to "the Muslims in Europe, my parents, my brothers in the jails of the despots and the government and people of the Netherlands."
The broadcast of the video, which is regarded as key evidence in the upcoming trial has been frowned upon by a prosecution spokesman. Azzouz's lawyer, Victor Koppe, was unavailable for comment.
Azzouz, now aged 20, is of Moroccan descent. He was arrested as part of an operation called "Operation Piranha". Other suspects from this surveillance are linked to the Hofstad Group. This group, named after a slang name for the Hague, included Mohamed Bouyeri, the man who murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh on November 2, 2004, for offending Muslim "sensibilities".
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at September 15, 2006 6:17 PM
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