page_title: Pim Fortuyn
section_title: Assassination
hierarchical_section_title: Pim Fortuyn / Career / Assassination
caption_attribution_description: Huis Pim Fortuyn (periode 1998-2002), Palazzo di Pietro, 6 mei 2007
context_page_description: Wilhelmus Simon Petrus Fortuijn, known as Pim Fortuyn, was a Dutch politician, academic, author and businessman who formed his own party, Pim Fortuyn List in 2002.
  Initially a Marxist and later a member of the Dutch Labour Party, Fortuyn's beliefs began to shift to the right in the 1990s in response to the immigration policies of the Netherlands. Fortuyn prompted controversy with his views on multiculturalism, immigration and Islam in the Netherlands. He called Islam "a backward culture", and was quoted as saying that if it were legally possible, he would close the borders for Muslim immigrants. Fortuyn also supported tougher measures against crime and opposed state bureaucracy, wanting to reduce Dutch financial contribution to the European Union. He was labelled a far-right populist by his opponents and in the media, but he fiercely rejected this label. Fortuyn was openly homosexual and a supporter of gay rights.
  Fortuyn explicitly distanced himself from "far-right" politicians such as the Belgian Filip Dewinter, Austrian Jörg Haider, or Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Pen whenever compared to them.
context_section_description: On 6 May 2002, at age 54, Fortuyn was assassinated by gunshot in Hilversum, North Holland, by Volkert van der Graaf. The attack took place in a parking lot outside a radio studio where Fortuyn had just given an interview. This was nine days before the general election, for which he was running. The attacker was pursued by Hans Smolders, Fortuyn's driver, and was arrested by the police shortly afterward, still in possession of a handgun. Months later, Van der Graaf confessed in court to the first notable political assassination in the Netherlands since 1672 (excluding World War II), and on 15 April 2003, he was convicted of assassinating Fortuyn and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He was released on parole in May 2014 after serving two-thirds of his sentence, the standard procedure under the Dutch penal system.
  The assassination shocked many residents of the Netherlands and highlighted the cultural clashes within the country. Various conspiracy theories arose after Pim Fortuyn's murder and deeply affected Dutch politics and society. Politicians from all parties suspended campaigning. After consultation with LPF, the government decided not to postpone the elections. As Dutch law did not permit modifying the ballots, Fortuyn became a posthumous candidate. The LPF made an unprecedented debut in the House of Representatives by winning 26 seats (17% of the 150 seats in the house). The LPF joined a cabinet with the Christian Democratic Appeal and the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, but conflicts in the rudderless LPF quickly collapsed the cabinet, forcing new elections. By the following year, the party had lost support, winning only eight seats in the 2003 elections. It won no seats in the 2006 elections, by which time the Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders, had emerged as a successor.
  During the last months of his life, Fortuyn had become closer to the Catholic Church. To the surprise of many commentators and Dutch TV hosts, Fortuyn insisted on Fr. Louis Berger, a parish priest from The Hague, accompanying him in some of his last TV appearances. According to the New York Times, Berger had become his "friend and confessor" during the last weeks of his life.
  Fortuyn was initially buried in Driehuis in the Netherlands. He was re-interred on 20 July 2002, at San Giorgio della Richinvelda, in the province of Pordenone in Italy, where he had owned a house.
caption: Fortuyn's house in Rotterdam where he lived from 1998 until his death
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