Volkert van der Graaf

In 2018, Van der Graaf again took legal action against the government over the terms of his parole, saying that the parole hearings prevented him from emigrating. The court ruled in his favour, and an appeal was withdrawn after a new arrangement was made: that Van der Graaf would report by email once every two months, until April 2020. As of May 2019, he was still resident in Apeldoorn.

In 2017, Van der Graaf faced another court case in which the public prosecutor asked that he be returned to prison for a year for failing to sufficiently answer questions at probation meetings. However, on 6 February 2017 the court found that he had sufficiently met his probation requirements by appearing at the meetings.

Van der Graaf was released on parole on 2 May 2014, after having served two-thirds of his sentence as required by Dutch law. The conditions of his parole were: weekly reporting to the probation service; a ban on visiting the places of residence of relatives of the victim or the municipal areas of Rotterdam, Hilversum and The Hague; location monitoring with an ankle bracelet with GPS; a ban on contacting the relatives of Fortuyn; a ban on communicating with the media; and compulsory meetings with a psychologist or psychiatrist. He subsequently settled in Apeldoorn.

In July 2014, his lawyer Stijn Franken started legal proceedings against the terms of the parole. Van der Graaf was interested in becoming a legal advisor, and the restriction on visiting The Hague was unreasonable when so many legal organisations are based there. He also claimed that the restriction on communicating with the press was a violation of free speech, and that this and other restrictions were unnecessary when experts had found the risk of recidivism to be extremely low. He was partially successful, in that the travel restrictions and the ankle bracelet conditions were removed, but the media ban remained to "prevent unnecessary social unrest". The government appealed the judgement, but it was upheld.

On 7 July 2006, the national daily newspaper De Telegraaf published an article alleging Van der Graaf's connection with the murder of Van der Werken. De Telegraaf printed extracts of a secret police report on the murder of Van der Werken on its website. Quirijn Meijnen, a Dutch-based media lawyer who represented Van der Graaf, said the accusations were grave and unfounded, and that the publication of extracts of the secret police report infringed Van der Graaf's privacy rights. De Telegraaf failed to mention that Van der Graaf was never a suspect in the murder case of Van der Werken.

Van der Graaf was arrested shortly after shooting Fortuyn, who died immediately. In court, van der Graaf testified that he had become alarmed that Fortuyn was using Muslims and immigrants as scapegoats in a campaign to seek political power. He thought the politician endangered society with his controversial statements. His trial started on 27 March 2003. He was convicted on 15 April 2003 and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The trial generated large interest from the Dutch public, especially Fortuyn supporters. Van der Graaf appealed for the reduction of the sentence to 16 years, but on 18 July 2003, the appeals court upheld the previous sentence. He was released on parole in May 2014 after serving 12 years, two-thirds of his sentence, according to Dutch practice.

During a second "pro forma" hearing on 4 November, it was decided that the trial would be delayed while Van der Graaf was sent for seven weeks of psychiatric observation at the Pieter Baan Centre, starting in the first week of January 2003. In a press statement of 23 November, the prosecution (Public Ministry) announced that Van der Graaf had confessed to the murder. He said he planned it for some time and that nobody else was involved in the plans or knew about them. He believed Fortuyn was a steadily increasing danger for vulnerable groups in society. He saw no other possibility than to end the danger by killing Fortuyn.

On 6 January 2003, Van der Graaf was moved to the Pieter Baan Centrum (PBC) to begin the seven-week behavioural investigation. Disagreements between the Ministry of Justice and the management of the PBC over the conditions of his supervision delayed it. The Ministry wanted Van der Graaf under video surveillance 24 hours per day and isolated from other patients for his own safety. The PBC believed such cameras would prevent establishing the trust needed for the multi-disciplinary behavioural investigation. It took responsibility to supervise him in a small group so that the investigation could proceed optimally. On 20 January, Van der Graaf said he was suspending his cooperation for the investigation. The Minister of Justice, Piet Hein Donner, resolved the dispute by dropping the demands for video surveillance and isolation.

On January, 29th, 2003 a third "pro forma" hearing was held in which the dates for the trial were set. Since the subject of the trial was expected to be not so much the question of the guilt of Van der Graaf, but instead the degree of the punishment, the report of the Pieter Baan Centrum was considered highly significant, in case it found that he was of "diminished responsibilities". After the completion of the investigation on 14 March, he was returned to his prison cell in the Bijlmerbajes.

Van der Graaf said that he would not have committed the murder, at least not on that evening, if Fortuyn had been accompanied by security guards. This is relevant for accusations that the government should have provided security. On Tuesday, 15 April 2003, Van der Graaf was convicted and sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment.

The prosecution and the defence both made appeals against the sentence. Prior to the appeal, suggestions in the media that Van der Graaf may have had Asperger syndrome were rejected by workers at the PBC. They said they had considered and rejected the possibility. A psychiatric report read in court said that Van der Graaf had an obsessive compulsive personality but was sane and could be held accountable for his actions. The prosecution argued that the court had not taken account of the political nature of the murder, and asked again for life imprisonment. The defence argued that the sentence didn't take account of the harsh conditions under which Van der Graaf had been held, nor the damage that had been done by unsubstantiated allegations that had appeared in the media (such as the connection with Van der Werken), and requested a reduction in sentence to 16 years. The appeals court accepted some of the arguments from both parties, and on 18 July 2003 reiterated the sentence to 18 years' imprisonment.

On 6 May 2002 Pim Fortuyn was shot and killed outside a radio studio in Hilversum at 6:00 pm, just after he finished an interview. Interviewer Ruud de Wild witnessed the murder.

In the months following the murder, many conspiracy theories were put forth by supporters of Fortuyn and others. Officials investigating the murder dismissed these popular rumours, declaring that no evidence had been found for the involvement of others. No evidence was found to support rumors that Van der Graaf had committed the earlier murder in 1996 of Chris Van der Werken, an environmental official from Nunspeet, or that he had attended other appearances by Fortuyn.

Van der Graaf worked for the environmental organisation Vereniging Milieu Offensief in Wageningen, which he had co-founded in 1992. His job involved challenging violators of environmental regulations through litigation. He concentrated particularly on contesting practices in intensive animal farming and fur farming. He was said to be highly motivated, working more than the four days per week of his contract. He was successful at litigation, winning about three out of every four cases.

A second search of Van der Graaf's home on 24 June found a chemical mixture, calcium chlorate and sugar, hidden in 35 condoms in his garage. Nearby were flasks of sulphuric acid. Experts said the substances could be combined to make a fire bomb or explosive material. Van der Graaf later said that he had fabricated the materials around 1990–1992 for experimentation purposes and had forgotten about them.

Volkert van der Graaf (born 9 July 1969) is a Dutch convicted murderer who assassinated politician Pim Fortuyn, the leader of the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF), on 6 May 2002. This occurred during the political campaign for the Dutch general elections of 2002. An environmental and animal rights activist, he said at his trial that he murdered Fortuyn to stop him from exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats" and targeting "the vulnerable sections of society" in seeking political power.

To the argument that Fortuyn would have been chosen through democratic means, Van der Graaf said that that was also the case for Hitler. He compared the rise of Fortuyn to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. In his final argument, he said that he had acted from his conscience, but that did not justify murder. He said it was absolutely not normal to shoot somebody to death.