Prosecutors have demanded jail sentences of seven years for three self-styled “sovereign citizens” who are accused of plotting violent attacks against the Dutch government.

A total of eight people, most of them aged between 45 and 70, are on trial in Rotterdam for offences including dealing in illegal weapons, threatening local officials and being members of a terrorist organisation.

One man, 63-year-old Johan R. from Geesteren in Overijssel, talked at a meeting about “taking people out of the game with military precision” and promised to pay €5,000 for attacks on public figures such as the former prime minister Mark Rutte, the health minister during the pandemic, Hugo de Jonge, and virologist Marion Koopmans.

He and his wife Angela K., 60, also published an “arrest warrant” for the mayor of Tubbergen when they faced having their house repossessed. They were prominent members of a local sovereign group that took the name Sapientes ab Oriente, Latin for “The wise ones of the East”. The prosecution has requested sentences of 18 months, six of them suspended, for the couple.

The longest sentences demanded by the prosecution are for three men known as the “Deventer Think Tank”, who are accused of buying weapons to use against the town’s mayor and carry out mass arrests.

The trio – Arjen van den B., 46, Gerard ten H., 66, and Kornelis Z., 52, are facing up to seven years in jail for allegedly planning to kill officials, as well as anyone who “snitched” to the police. Van den B. was carrying three weapons in his car and had another five in a rucksack at home when police arrested him last March.

Fireworks

“They went as far as purchasing weapons and powerful fireworks,” the prosecution said. “They also supplied weapons to other local groups, This shows they were preparing a violent confrontation with the Dutch government.”

The district court in Rotterdam will deliver its verdicts in November. Two other people accused of being involved in arms dealing are facing sentences of four and six years in prison in a separate trial.

The counter-terrorism co-ordinator NCTV has become increasingly concerned in recent years about the growth in numbers of self-declared sovereign or autonomous citizens, who reject the authority of the Dutch government, refuse to pay fines and send tax demands back unopened.

While most are said to be harmless, a hard core of up to 100 are believed to be willing to resort to violence and involved in plots against the state.

Two of the suspects on trial in Rotterdam operated an app group called Common Law Earth Netherlands (CLEN), which wants to replace the constitution with a “new republic” run by sheriffs, civilian militias and people’s courts.

In June a group of sovereign citizens were arrested for allegedly planning to attack the Nato summit meeting in The Hague, while another group are awaiting trial over a plot to firebomb the home of the mayor of Leeuwarden, Sybrand van Haersma Buma.