Interesting "Aspie Killer" I hadn't heard of befor

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The report from the PBC was complete by about March 21. It found that Van der Graaf could be held completely accountable for the killing. The report also stated that Van der Graaf had an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, which explains his rigid moral judgements. Menno Oosterhoff, a child psychiatrist from Groningen, publicly suggested that the Pieter Baan Centrum may have overlooked the possibility that Van der Graaf has Asperger syndrome. Oosterhoff later withdrew his theory. The PBC report stated that nothing could be said about the chance of another similar crime occurring, since the disorder had nothing to do with the murder. Van der Graaf agreed that he was accountable and that he had compulsive urges. The outcome of the investigation ensured that he would receive a prison sentence and not "TBS treatment".

Volkert van der Graaf is 33, Dutch, white and from the town of Harderwijk, east of Amsterdam.

An interview with Van der Graaf three years ago on the website of the group Animal Freedom - which stresses that he was not a member - reveals a man committed to animal rights from an early age.

His weapon was the law - something must have gone wrong, something derailed

Colleague of activist Volkert van der Graaf
One newspaper last year dubbed him "the Green Robin Hood".

At 15 years old, he worked caring for oil-covered birds in Zeeland.

As a student in Wageningen, home to a major university specialising in life sciences and agriculture, he joined an anti-vivisection group.

He was also active with the Inter-University Consultation on Animal Use - an organisation which he said aimed to reduce the use of laboratory animals in education.

At the time of the Animal Freedom interview, Van der Graaf said he worked for Environment Offensive, a group aimed at "stopping the expansion of factory farming".

"Through legal procedures we fight permits for factory farms and fur farms, using the law as our tool," the interview reads, fuelling speculation that Van der Graaf had been angered by Mr Fortuyn's stated plan to lift restrictions on fur farming if elected.

Personal struggle

Van der Graaf says his parents would not let him give up meat as a teenager, but he later became a vegan.


Van der Graaf struggled with the question of acceptability of the killing
"Sometimes when you have dinner with other people, you encounter incomprehension," he said.

The text suggests a personal struggle with the ethical issues surrounding the human treatment of animals - ranging from concern for the worms he used while fishing as boy, to whether his diet should exclude "eco-eggs".

"Many animal protectors act from the assumption that 'nature is good'," he said, "but every dark side of humans can also be found in nature".

"Protecting animals is civilizing people," he said.

A man said to be a member of Environment Offensive told Dutch television that Van der Graaf had started out believing that the law was his weapon.