Conseil De L'europe Council of Europe Cour Européenne Des Droits De L'homme European Court of Human Rights
CONSEIL COUNCIL DE L’EUROPE OF EUROPE COUR EUROPÉENNE DES DROITS DE L’HOMME EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS SECOND SECTION DECISION AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF Application no. 8704/03 by Volkert VAN DER GRAAF against the Netherlands The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 1 June 2004 as a Chamber composed of: Mr J.-P. COSTA, President, Mr A.B. BAKA, Mr L. LOUCAIDES, Mr C. BÎRSAN, Mr K. JUNGWIERT, Mrs W. THOMASSEN, Mrs A. MULARONI, judges, and Mr T.L. EARLY, Deputy Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 11 March 2003, Having deliberated, decides as follows: 2 VAN DER GRAAF v. THE NETHERLANDS DECISION THE FACTS The applicant, Mr Volkert van der Graaf, is a Netherlands national, who was born in 1969 and is currently serving a prison sentence in the Netherlands. He is represented before the Court by Mr A.A. Franken, a lawyer practising in Amsterdam. A. The circumstances of the case The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows. On 6 May 2002, the applicant was arrested and taken into custody on suspicion of having shot and killed earlier that day Mr Pim Fortuyn, a well- known Netherlands politician and the first candidate on the list of the LPF party for the imminent parliamentary elections on 15 May 2002. The killing of Mr Fortuyn and the applicant's arrest attracted massive national and international publicity and, in the evening of 6 May 2002, riots broke out in The Hague. Many perceived his killing as a direct attack on democracy.
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