The court has just sentenced Bouyeri (at 10:26 AM local Dutch time) to life in prison without parole. I'm off to bed as it is 1:30 AM here, but this post will be updated throughout the day with comments, translations and worthwhile links to other sites.

Still I want to make one point. I have very little appetite today to rehash the freedom of speech, tolerance, Muslim, Europe, jihad, immigration, terror etc. etc. discussion. We've done that at length. Today I think it's appropriate to remember that a fellow human being died in a horrendous and unimaginable way. A human being who:

Deeply loved his young son Lieuwe and cycled him to school whenever he could;

Believed that his son probably had a better future in America and wanted to take him there on as many trips as he possibly could;

Would mortgage his house to get hard-to-finance movie productions off the ground so he could pay a screenwriter;

And who consequently had deep arguments with said screenwriters because he would totally screw up the movie's plot;

Had deep, deep rifts with his cinematographers;

Was actually one of the first Dutch bloggers (after having been terminated by all major publications for whom he produced columns);

Loved life so much that he stopped drinking, which was quite something for him;

Must have taken deep pleasure from the fact that he was persistently rumoured to have had an affair with Katja Schuurman, Holland's hottest soap star (google her name at your pleasure);

Excelled at interviewing people in an informal setting (he ran a few very successful TV-shows);

Excelled in getting the best out of actors, at least those whom he preferred to work with;

Loved to work on many projects all at once, sometimes losing focus altogether;

Gladly displayed his mother's infidelities in one of his columns as a way to cleanse himself of the deep frustrations over his parents' difficult marriage;

Remained deeply furious with the Dutch government for never having paid him and his family any royalties on all the famous paintings produced by his great-great-uncle that are now on display in state-owned museums;

Made lots of money but spent it just as fast as he'd earned it;

Was simply a unique and intense person whose creative career had yet to peak.

Rest in peace, Theo. We will never forget you, your talents and what you stood for.

UPDATES:
Here's a link in English right after the sentencing;

And for newcomers here's the entire Van Gogh file.

COURT UPDATE: The sentence further includes Bouyeri's obligation to pick up Van Gogh's funeral/cremation costs as well as paying damages (not a lot, a few thousand Euros only) to some bystanders who witnessed the killing and who were hit by bullets. Interestingly, as far as I am aware none of these have come forward in the media with their story. A book deal might compensate for the paltry sum allocated by the court, I would think.

Furthermore, Bouyeri will not lose his right to vote, as the judge argued that the defendant had already made it very clear that he would refuse to participate in the political process.

HOLLYWOOD'S REACTION: Roger Simon says that there has been zero interest from tinseltown and notes wryly that the trial that got most coverage recently was Roman Polanski vs. Vanity Fair. Read his whole post.

MEDIA COVERAGE: Times, WaPo, and Radio Netherlands which has some interesting comments about the nature of Bouyeri's life sentence.

RELATED: Michelle Malkin notes that two of the London terror suspects were on welfare. So was Bouyeri.

FINALLY: Blogcritics has a round-up too with lots of pictures.

Posted by Pieter Dorsman at 01:30 AM | DIGG This | del.icio.us | TrackBack (4)