Geert Wilders halts Dutch campaign after details leaked to Moroccan gang

Anti-Islam Dutch MP Geert Wilders and his far-right Freedom Party suspended all public activities on Thursday after a police agent was arrested for allegedly leaking information about him to a Moroccan gang.

"Very disturbing news. The Freedom Party is suspending all public activities until all facts in connection with the investigation are known," Wilders said on Twitter, as Dutch political parties gear up for a general election on 15 March.

The firebrand MP, who has courted controversy with his hardline anti-Islam, anti-immigrant stance and incendiary insults against Moroccans and Turks, has long been under 24-hour police protection.

Tensions are escalating ahead of the election, in which the Freedom Party is running neck-and-neck with the Liberals of Prime Minister Mark Rutte. 

On Saturday, Wilders upped the tone at the launch of his official campaign, denouncing "a lot of Moroccan scum who make the streets unsafe".

The highly-respected NRC daily newspaper reported on Wednesday that a police agent involved in protecting Wilders had been arrested for allegedly passing on information about him to a Moroccan crime gang.

Dutch police chief Erik Akkerboom confirmed an investigation had been opened but said that Wilders' safety "was never in question".

However, the matter was deemed so serious that Rutte, who is currently campaigning for his own Liberal VVD party, met Wilders to discuss the issue.

The suspected agent was released on Thursday pending the investigation, Dutch news agency ANP said.

Netherlands is no stranger to political violence, even though the small country of just 17 million people has largely gained a reputation for tolerance.

Flamboyant far-right leader Pim Fortuyn was assassinated just nine days before Dutch elections in 2002, shocking the country to the core.

Just two years later in November 2004, filmmaker Theo van Gogh was gunned down in the street by a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim, sparking weeks of unrest.

Wilders, 53, has vowed in his party's one-page manifesto that if elected he would ban the sale of Qurans, close mosques and Islamic schools, shut Dutch borders and ban Muslim migrants.