A Dutch court sentenced the confessed killer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh to life imprisonment today, the harshest sentence possible for a murder that the judge described as a terrorist attack.

Mohammed Bouyeri, 27, had mounted no defence at his two-day trial earlier this month for the killing last November.

Bouyeri had accused Van Gogh of insulting Islam and told the court he would do it again if given the chance.

"The terrorist attack on Theo van Gogh has unleashed feelings of great fear and insecurity in society", Udo Willem Bentinck, the presiding judge, told Bouyeri. "There is only one fitting punishment in this case and that is a life sentence. You are thus convicted to a life sentence."

Van Gogh, well known for his scathing criticism of Islam and the multicultutural society, was shot and stabbed in broad daylight as he cycled the streets of Amsterdam on November 2, 2004, pleading with his killer to discuss his grievance as he died. Bouyeri cut the filmmaker's throat and impaled a letter in his chest threatening Dutch politicians.

Bouyeri, wearing a black and white checkered headscarf, showed no emotion as he shook his lawyer’s hand following the verdict. He had earlier told the court he had intended to die in the action and become a martyr for his faith.

Mr Bentinck said the three-judge panel had concluded there was no possibility for Bouyeri to return to society, citing his lack of remorse and the likelihood that he would never change his radical views.

In a surprise declaration during his trial, Bouyeri said that he had acted in the name of Islam and felt no pain for Van Gogh’s family. After reciting Islamic prayers, he told the courtroom that if given the chance he would "do exactly the same thing".

"What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith," Bouyeri told the court. "I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet."

Bouyeri is the son of Moroccan immigrants, but was raised and educated in the Netherlands.

Van Gogh, a descendant of Vincent Van Gogh through the painter's brother, Theo, was a social critic and columnist who attacked the treatment of women in fundamentalist Islamic households in a short film, Submission, which offended many Muslims.

The film’s scriptwriter was Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of the Dutch parliament who went into hiding for several months after Van Gogh’s murder because she was named in the note left on the corpse.

The killing led to dozens of arson attacks against Islamic schools and mosques and has strained relations with the country’s million-strong Muslim immigrant community.

Bouyeri is allegedly a member of a terrorist cell known as the Hofstad Network and is said to have attended private prayer sessions with a Syrian spiritual leader, Redouan al-Issar, who is reportedly in custody in Damascus, Syria.

Tomorrow, another Dutch court will review the case of a dozen suspected Hofstad Network members. Though they were not accused of having links to Van Gogh’s murder, prosecutors say they were plotting other terrorist attacks.

One suspected member of the group, Rachid Belkacem, agreed last week to be extradited from Britain to face trial on a range of offences.

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