Man guilty of defacing war memorial during Palestine protest

A man who sprayed pro-Palestinian slogans on the Dutch national war memorial during a protest has been found guilty of causing criminal damage.

The 25-year-old man wrote “Never again is now!” in red paint during the demonstration in Amsterdam on August 16 last year against Israel’s use of military force in Gaza.

He was arrested on the spot and told police he had sprayed the graffiti. The prosecution service charged him with vandalism, but a police magistrate ruled that he had damaged the monument rather than vandalised it.

“Removing the paint allowed the monument to be returned to its former state and that is indeed what happened,” the court said in its judgment.

The judge did not impose any fine or sentence on the man after deciding he had already atoned for his crime by paying €895 in compensation to the city council and undergoing a three-hour interrogation by police after he was arrested.

Freedom of expression

His lawyer argued he should not have faced legal action because it infringed on his freedom of expression, but the judge said he could have made his views known without defacing a public monument.

The court said the damage was aggravated by the fact that the memorial was built to commemorate victims of the Second World War, which made it “socially unacceptable and disproportionate”.

The war memorial was also damaged on May 4 this year during the annual ceremony to commemorate the war dead. Police have said investigations into that incident are continuing but have made no arrests so far.