Court to hand down verdict in Dutch terror case

AMSTERDAM, Mar 10 (Reuters) A group of 13 suspected Islamist militants will hear today whether a Dutch court will uphold demands for sentences of up to 20 years in a verdict seen as a test of tougher new anti-terrorism laws.

Prosecutors have said a hard core of four, including Mohammed Bouyeri, the convicted killer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, led what has been dubbed the Hofstad group, a militant network of young men in their 20s mainly of Moroccan origin.

They are suspected of plotting attacks on unspecified targets.

The new charge of ''membership of a criminal organisation with terrorist intent'' is intended to enable militants to be convicted before the attacks they plan are carried out. It was introduced in 2004. Similar trials collapsed in the past.

One man was sentenced to three years in February for trying to recruit volunteers and planning a ''violent jihad'', the first conviction under the tighter laws.

Analysts say judges were under pressure to decide if or not to convict suspects of crimes that have not yet been committed.

Several acquittals in trials of people suspected of planning attacks in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe have raised the question of how close a suspect must be to detonating a bomb before prosecutors can demonstrate guilt.

''A few will get stiff sentences,'' said Edwin Bakker from the Clingendael Institute for International Relations referring to suspects accused of attempting to kill police officers and weapons possession.

''But whether they constituted a group is harder to prove,'' he said.

Prosecutors demanded an 20-year sentence for Ismail Akhnikh and Jason Walters, charged with trying to kill police officers who were wounded when the suspects hurled a hand grenade at them when they tried to arrest the men in a 2004 raid.

They called for 10 years jail for Nouriddin El Fatmi, also seen as a ringleader, who was arrested carrying a loaded pistol.

Six others face four- or five-year sentences for furthering the aims of the alleged group.

Prosecutors demanded sentences equal to the time already spent in temporary detention for the remaining suspects.

''If the judge decides there is not enough evidence to prove a group existed, and that this was a fabrication, then we should accept this because you cannot gain more evidence by making new laws,'' Bakker said.

Defence lawyers say there was not enough evidence against their clients, who they said were being persecuted for being Muslims.

Reuters AD VP0732