AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – A translator at the Dutch secret service arrested in October for allegedly leaking classified information may have had links to suspected terrorists arrested in connection with filmmaker Theo van Gogh's (search) murder, a spokesman for the National Prosecutor's office said Wednesday.
Separately, the Dutch Justice Ministry has deported one of 12 terrorism suspects tried last year in the Netherlands on charges of having recruited young Dutch Muslims for jihad, or Islamic holy war, immigration spokesman Martin Bruinsma said Wednesday.
Dutch media identified the 34-year-old translator suspected of links to Van Gogh's killers as Outmar Ben A. or Othman Ben A. But National Prosecutor's office spokesman Wim de Bruin said he could not confirm the name.
In a letter to parliament last week, Interior Minister Johan Remkes said one of the suspects in the leak case who allegedly received secret information stayed at the same address as Mohammed Bouyeri (search), Van Gogh's alleged killer.
Remkes said Friday that it was not clear whether Bouyeri himself may have obtained secret information.
De Bruin said details about the suspect, who remains in custody, would be made known only at a preliminary hearing in his trial in mid-January.
Three other suspects in the leak case were released last week because of a lack of evidence.
Bouyeri and 12 alleged members of the Islamic fundamentalist ring referred to by Dutch intelligence as the "Hofstad" network (search) have been arrested since Van Gogh's killing on Nov. 2.
Van Gogh was slain several months after he released a film critical of the treatment of women under Islam.
On Friday, the Netherlands deported suspected Algerian Muslim extremist Abdelhamid Bouchema (search), 38, to Spain after the Dutch secret service said he "formed a serious threat to public safety and national security," authorities said. Court documents in the past have identified the deported man also as "Mustafa Bouhidel" or "Mustafa Fidela."
Bouchema has a Spanish immigrant visa, and Bruinsma said the deportation had been arranged in advance by Spanish authorities. He declined comment on whether Bouchema is a suspect in Spain or whether he will be detained on arrival.
At the 2003 trial, prosecutors alleged the 12 accused men successfully recruited two young Dutch men of Moroccan origin who were killed in an apparent suicide attack on Indian troops in Kashmir in December 2001. All the accused were acquitted.
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