A man shot dead by Amsterdam police after he stabbed two officers had a history of mental problems, and had at one point been interrogated as a witness in a terrorism case, the city’s district attorney said Monday. The man who was shot dead Sunday was identified as 22-year-old Bilal B., a Dutch man of Moroccan descent, District Attorney Leo de Wit said Monday. He said the man, who had been in a psychiatric hospital as recently as Sunday morning, was an associate of the “Hofstad Group” – a group of radical Dutch Muslims that includes Mohammed Bouyeri, serving a life sentence for the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. In 2005 “Bilal B. had contacts with members of the Hofstad group, and there were discussion about that” with the Dutch secret service, De Wit told reporters at a news conference together with the mayor and chief of police.
