ABSTRACT
On Monday evening, 1 November 2004, during Ramadan, Mohammed Bouyeri, a 26-year-old Dutch Moroccan, born and raised in Amsterdam, had a late supper with his friends. 1 After the meal was over he handed them some letters – later to be discovered as his last will. Early the next morning, Bouyeri prayed with his comrades, had breakfast with them and left the house on his bike with his pistol, a ritual kukri (machete) and a fillet knife in his rucksack. His housemates denied having known anything about these weapons, although they lived together in his cramped two-room flat (the living room measured 15 square meters, the single bedroom only 10) nor did they offer an explanation as to how Bouyeri could have purchased them. 2 At 8.40, that Tuesday morning, 2 November, Bouyeri overtook the controversial publicist and film-maker Theo van Gogh on the Linnaeusstraat, shot him from his bike, followed him to the other side of the street, fired another round of bullets (eight in total) then cut his throat with the machete, in front of 53 witnesses. With the smaller knife, he pinned an ‘Open letter to Hirsi Ali’ to van Gogh's chest and then fled, unsuccessfully shooting at some passersby before exchanging gunfire with the police. He tried to kill the officers who pursued him, planning to be killed himself in the process and become a martyr, but was shot in the leg and overpowered. 3
