AMSTERDAM, 13 July 2005 — The trial of Mohammed Bouyeri, the man accused of killing Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, ended with a dramatic courtroom confession yesterday when he said he acted out of his religious beliefs and would do “exactly the same again”.

“I take complete responsibility for my actions. I acted purely in the name of my religion,” 27-year-old Dutch-Moroccan national Mohammed Bouyeri told the court in Amsterdam, without saying what his actions were.

The prosecution had earlier presented over 50 statements of witnesses who saw Bouyeri shoot and stab Van Gogh on an Amsterdam street on November 2, 2004.

Prosecutor Frits van Straelen demanded a life sentence as he recalled the particular brutality of the murder in broad daylight, saying Van Gogh was not only shot at 15 times but also stabbed and finally his throat was slit in “an almost ritualistic slaughter”.

Bouyeri told the prosecutor that he concurred with the charges against him and the demand for a life sentence — a sentence that holds no possibility of parole in The Netherlands.

The murder of Van Gogh, a filmaker and outspoken columnist who often criticised Islam and multicultural society, stoked ethnic tensions and sparked a wave of reprisal attacks primarily directed at the Muslim community here.

He said he felt an obligation to Van Gogh’s mother Anneke, present in court, to speak, but offered no sympathy. “I have to admit I do not feel for you, I do not feel your pain ... because I believe you are an infidel”, he said. “I acted out of conviction — not because I hated your son.”

Van Gogh’s mother listened quietly as Bouyeri, wearing a Palestinian black and white headscarf, spoke with a hint of admiration for her son.

“He was not a hypocrite. He said things out of conviction,” Bouyeri said of Van Gogh.

“I would do the same to my brother or father” if they had insulted Islam, he said.

Several months before he was killed, Van Gogh, a distant relative of 19th-century painter Vincent van Gogh, had directed a short film called “Submission”, which linked abuse of women to Islam.