A MAN WHO stormed a Dutch national television studio earlier this year brandishing a fake gun and demanding airtime has had his jail term increased to 40 months.

NOS NOS

Judges at the appeals court in northern Leeuwarden in the Netherlands said the 20-year-old, known only as Tarik Z, was guilty of “taking hostages, threats, and possessing a weapon in the buildings of NOS on 29 January.”

They agreed with an appeal brought by prosecutors against his initial two-and-a-half year sentence, including 15 months suspended.

Rejecting the defendant’s own appeal, the court ruled he must now serve 40 months in prison with 24 suspended. In practice, this means that he will serve just one extra month in jail.

The court also banned him from being any closer than five kilometres (three miles) to the NOS station in central Hilversum.

Tarik Z, whose last name was not given due to privacy rules in the Netherlands, had claimed when he entered the NOS station that he represented a hackers’ collective.

He also claimed in a letter that he had planted explosives and that his group was poised to launch a major cyber attack in the Netherlands.

He later admitted to working alone and that there were in fact no explosives planted or any attack planned.

“His actions had a huge impact on those people concerned, particularly as it followed the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris a few weeks earlier,” the judges said.

The security guards had been afraid for their lives.

The prosecutors had called for a four-year jail term.

- © AFP, 2015

Previously: Armed man demands airtime on Dutch TV before being overpowered >