Assassination of Pim Fortuyn

Assassination of Pim Fortuyn
The car park where Fortuyn was assassinated (directly behind the red car)
Location	Hilversum, North Holland, Netherlands
Date	6 May 2002 18:05 (CEST)
Target	Pim Fortuyn
Attack type	Assassination
Weapons	Star M-43 Firestar (9×19mm)
Deaths	1 (Fortuyn)

Pim Fortuyn, a Dutch politician, was assassinated by Volkert van der Graaf in Hilversum, North Holland on 6 May 2002, nine days before the Dutch general election of 2002.

On a few occasions, Fortuyn expressed his fear of being murdered: after being pied at the official release of his book De puinhopen van acht jaar Paars and, most notably, on the talk show Jensen!.

In court at his trial, van der Graaf, an environmental and animal rights activist, said he murdered Fortuyn to stop him from exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats" and targeting "the weak members of society" in seeking political power.

Fortuyn was fifty-four years old when he was assassinated by Volkert van der Graaf in a car park outside a radio studio where Fortuyn had just given an interview to Ruud de Wild at 3FM. The attacker was pursued by Fortuyn's driver, Hans Smolders, and was arrested shortly afterwards while still in possession of the handgun used to assassinate Fortuyn.

Van der Graaf was arrested near the scene of the crime after a pursuit by witnesses. Details of the suspect were always officially reported as "Volkert van der G.", in accordance with unwritten Dutch privacy practice, but his full name was readily available on the internet. His home and work addresses were soon circulated on web sites used by Fortuyn's supporters. Angry supporters gathered in several cities, so several people related to Van der Graaf went into hiding. His girlfriend and their daughter left their house on the evening of the murder.

The details of the murder emerged later; the accounts of the investigators and Van der Graaf were consistent. He had planned the attack using information obtained from the Internet; printouts of a map of the scene of the crime and schedules of Fortuyn's appearances were found in his car. In two boxes of cartridges found at his home, seven cartridges were missing, the exact number loaded in his gun. The attack has been described as the work of a single person, an amateur shooter who used a relatively simple plan and did not prepare a good escape route.