More than 40,000 people have signed a petition calling on the justice ministry to refuse to grant an early release to the man who shot dead populist politician Pim Fortuyn.

The petition was started by Fortuyn’s driver Hans Smolders and presented to junior justice minister Fred Teeven on Friday.
Volkert van der Graaf shot Fortuyn dead on May 6, 2002 and was sentenced to 18 years in jail. This means next year he could be eligible for trial parole periods and in May 2014 for early release.
In the Netherlands, convicted criminals tend to be released after serving two-thirds of their sentence.