Dutch court jails militants on terrorism charges

AMSTERDAM, Mar 10 (Reuters) A Dutch court handed down sentences of up to 15 years today to a group of nine Islamist militants it found guilty of belonging to a terrorist organisation and acquitted four other suspects.

Prosecutors had demanded sentences of up to 20 years in a verdict seen as a test of tougher new anti-terrorism laws.

Similar trials for the charge of ''membership of a criminal organisation with terrorist intent'' have collapsed in the past.

The charge was introduced in 2004 and is intended to enable militants to be convicted before the attacks they plan are carried out.

''The group ... spread texts inciting violence and threatened terrorist crimes,'' the presiding judge said.

''Threatening to carry out terrorist crimes strikes public order in the heart ... He who sows hatred and preaches violence is laying the basis for crimes aimed at instilling fear in the population and to destroy the Dutch rule of law,'' he said.

Reuters SY BS1923