Gunman 'shot Fortuyn to help Muslims'

The man who confessed to killing the anti-immigration campaigner Pim Fortuyn told a Dutch court yesterday that he wanted to protect the country's Muslim minority from the impact of the politician's rhetoric.

At the start of his murder trial,Volkert van der Graaf, 33, talked of his motives for committing the murder that sent shockwaves through the Netherlands last year.

Mr van der Graaf, who was known as an animal rights activist, was arrested moments after Fortuyn was gunned down in a car park in Hilversum on 6 May, 2002, days before elections. The murder weapon was discovered in his pocket and traces of Fortuyn's blood were found on his trousers.

The shooting of the maverick right-winger was the first political assassination in modern Dutch history and provoked an earthquake in the nation's consensual politics. Riding a wave of sympathy after his death, List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), the politician's party, was catapulted briefly into government.

Mr van der Graaf appeared relaxed and confident in court. But proceedings were interrupted as members of the public shouted "murderer" and "life". One woman was led from the court after shouting: "You ruined the Netherlands and I demand you are put behind bars for life. You took a great leader away from us."

Mr van der Graaf scanned the public gallery for familiar faces, avoiding eye contact with Mr Fortuyn's brothers, Marten and Simon, before telling the court that the idea of committing the murder "was never concrete until the day before the attack", adding: "I confess to the shooting."

Mr van der Graaf said he had followed Fortuyn's career as a columnist for a popular national magazine and was concerned that the writer was using "the weak parts of society to score points" and gain political power.

"In my eyes, this was a highly vindictive man who used feelings in society to boost his personal stature," he said. "I could see no other option than to do what I did." Muslims in the Netherlands were being used as "scapegoats", he said. "I saw it as a danger, but what should you do about it? I hoped that I could solve it myself."

Mr van der Graaf is charged with premeditated murder and faces life in prison if convicted. During several days of hearings at a high-security courtroom in Amsterdam, nicknamed the bunker, judges will consider his mental state at the time of the shooting and decide whether he can be held accountable for his actions. Prosecutors accept that he acted alone.

Pim Fortuyn, a charismatic gay academic and columnist, swiftly gained popularity with his claims that the Netherlands was "full" and that Islam was a "backward religion".

His party won more than 10 per cent of the vote and a place in the three-party right-wing governing coalition last year after the Fortuyn murder.

But feuding within the party led to the fall of the government and two thirds of the LPF's seats were swept away in elections in January this year. Deprived of its founder and original leader, the party started to disintegrate.

Mr van der Graaf, a graduate of the country's leading agriculture university, fought a series of legal cases against commercial animal farming. At the time of the murder, he lived with his girlfriend and baby daughter in Harderwijk in the Dutch bible belt.

In prison, he went on hunger strike for more than two months to protest against round-the-clock camera surveillance in his cell.

In addition to the murder charge, Mr van der Graaf is accused of threatening Mr Fortuyn's driver, Hans Smolders, who gave chase after the attack and who helped police to track down the suspect.

He also faces charges for possessing an explosive mixture of chemical substances, which police say they found in 35 condoms in his garage.