Wilders' story about a cleaner who was assaulted by Moroccans was just a minor traffic dispute.
During the budget discussions, Geert Wilders recounted a dramatic story about a cleaner in Utrecht who was assaulted while "twenty Moroccans intervened." However, the police and the woman involved have now confirmed that the incident was merely a traffic dispute.
Wilders began his two-hour speech with an email from a cleaning lady, describing her as a working mother of two who was attacked while at work. According to his account, the woman was insulted by a lady wearing a hijab, then hit by a man who was with her, before "twenty Moroccans" intervened in the incident.
The police said that this description does not match their records. They confirmed that the cleaner was indeed struck, but classified the incident as a "minor assault" related to a traffic dispute. Most importantly, according to the police, there was no large group present, which directly contradicts Wilders' account.
The woman wearing the hijab, who requested to be identified as Lina, also rejected Wilders' narrative. In her conversation with Nieuwsuur, she explained that the confrontation was the result of a traffic dispute and not related to origin or immigration. She added that she filed a complaint against the cleaner, accusing her of threatening her. Lina, a Dutch citizen and mother of two, said she felt deeply hurt by Wilders' use of the incident to portray immigrants as a danger to Dutch society.
This was not the first time that claims made by Wilders were corrected by the authorities. Earlier this year, he mistakenly stated that a suspect in the murder of 17-year-old Lisa was arrested and then released a week before the crime, which the police denied. These repeated corrections raise new questions about the accuracy of Wilders' statements as the parliamentary elections approach.