Volkert van der Graaf, vegan killer

Dutch daily "De Telegraaf" published exerpts of a confidential police investigation report (Dutch), in which clues are put together adding up to a picture of Volkert van der Graaf's extra-legal activities as an animal rights activist. The report is remarkable because it is one of the very few police reports into the activites of violent animal rights activists in The Netherlands. This report was composed by the Investigative Branch of the National Police (Nationale Recherche, Korps Landelijke Politie Diensten).

Volkert is the assassin of Pim Fortuyn. He shot Fortuyn on 6 May 2002, at 18:00 hours in Hilversum, The Netherlands.

Not the first assasination

There have been suspicions that it is not Volkert's first murder.

Chris van der Werken, a civil servant responsible for environmental policy in the North Veluwe, an agricultural part of the country, where both Volkert and van der Werken used to live and work. Volkert as an animal's rights and environmental activist subsidized by quasi-governmental organisations ("Postcodeloterij" and "Actie Kinderpostzegels").

Chris van der Werken was shot in the back when he was taking a stroll in a forest in 1996.

Volkert and Chris van der Werken had a conflict about a plan both their organisations were collaborating on. A plan to reduce the ammonia emissions of pig breeders. This was in 1995 and 1996.

The animal rights network, an infrastructure of the left

Background

Volkert was working for the Environmental Offensive Foundation or VMO ("Vereniging Milieu Offensief"), a foundation he had started himself and of which he was an administrator and paid employee. The organisation was funded by subsidies, alotted by sympathetic politicians. The organisation was a part of administrative bodies and councils that deal with environmental policy. A lot of his work consisted of lobbying provincial and municipal polities, in addition to starting up environmental complaint procedures against farmers who wanted to change or enlarge their operations.

Those were his legal activities. Volkert was also a member of a group called the "Furious Potatoes" (De Ziedende Bintjes). This is a group that carries out illegal, violent actions against fur breeders, companies that carry out animal tests and firms that operate in a way that they consider environmentally unsound. These groups are connected to the extreme leftwing squatter movement. Their activities are again often subsidised directly and indirectly by sympathetic politicians. Politicians hinder and disband police units investigating violent activities of animal rights and environmental activists. The activists are known to terrorize police investigators and their families. Biologist Margreet Jonker, a researcher into cancer treatment using test animals, was one of the few who dared to come forward to testify about the violence and threats against her and her family, by these governments sponsored left wing terrorists. Dutch judges are full of sympathy towards the terrorists and let them off with minumum sentences.

The Dutch animal rights and environmental activists have a working co-operation with like minded extremist British organisations as SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty), a violent British organisation.

Support in high places

One of the most shocking attacks is the abduction of Ferry de Vries, a fur trader. He was bound and gagged and beaten up by 10 masked animal rights activists. Later during the court case against the abductors the judge showed all kinds of sympathy for the abductors who go off scot-free, no jail time, just 200 hours of community service. A symbolic punishment. The activists had ample opportunities to propagandize during the court hearings and were even allowed to show a propaganda film about fur breeding.

Volkert van der Graaf is an example of the way these organisations operate. They create legal entities. They do not fund raise or appeal for money from the public, but are funded by chums in the governments, provincial and municipal administrations and bureaucracies. Their activities are encouraged by mainstream environmental organisations as Lekker Dier and Greenpeace. They gather information (maps, registers, notes of meetings) using their legal fronts and use the information for attacks by the underground organisations, such as SHAC and the "Furious Potatoes/De Ziedende Bintjes").

In case of investigations by police they use their contacts in the Leftist parties Greens, Socialist Party and Labour to disband the Investigative Teams. In case of prosecution due to theft, destruction of property and accounting ledgers of firms the judges show their sympathy and give the activists very light sentences.

Pim Fortuyn was about to win in a landslide

The leftist establishment panics. Their organisations are dependent on subsidies. Subsidies that Fortuyn says he will end.

A killer from the animal rights organisations network kills Fortuyn. Co-incidentially there is a car nearby with policemen with bulletproof vests and guns. They arrest Volkert within 10 minutes.

But they do not go to his house, to search for clues and a wider involvement.

Cover-up

A politician of the Greens in a nearby town of Wageningen, a hotbed of Green and animal rights activism, an acquaintance of Volkert hears the news that Fortuyn has been assassinated. His name is Jack Bogers and he is a Green Alderman. He makes a phonecall minutes after the assassination to a friend of Volkert, Sjoerd van der Wouw, working for the same organisation as Volkert. Sjoerd van der Wouw enters the house of Volkert and erases the hard disk of Volkert's computer.

Obviously Sjoerd and Jack suspect or know that Volkert is the killer of Fortuyn. At the time the identity of the killer is not known and there is widespread speculation that it is a Muslim.

Only the next day the police search the house. They still found some clues, amongst other things plans and blueprints of buildings and premises of targeted firms.

It looks as if Volkert was a tool for other people who knew what he was up to and what he was capable of and did not want him stopped. Fortuyn was threatened and had asked the Ministry of the Interior for protection against assassination. This protection was denied by the Minister himself, Labour politician Klaas de Vries. Fortuyn had also said on TV that if he would be shot the blood would be on the hands of the politicians denying him protection.

In conclusion: Klaas de Vries was in charge of the police, which had the arrest team ready to apprehend Volkert as he killed Fortuyn, but which did not search Volkert's house until at least some of the evidence had dissappeared.

And Sjoerd and Jack, the Green aiders of Volkert were never prosecuted.

On Tuesday, April 15, 2003, Van der Graaf was convicted and sentenced to a paltry 18 years' imprisonment.

More...

BBC Article on Van der Graaf