Court officials have set aside three weeks for the trial of PVV leader Geert Wilders on charges of inciting hatred and discrimination.

Formal hearings will begin on October 31 and the verdict is due in early December, officials said on Friday. There will be a procedural hearing on March 18.

The trial will take place in the high security court at Schiphol airport.

The public prosecution department decided in December 2014 to prosecute Wilders after he led supporters in an anti-Moroccan chant at a post local election meeting.

‘Politicians can go far in what they say, that is part of freedom of speech. But the freedom is limited by the ban on discrimination,’ the short prosecution department statement said at the time.

Fewer

The case dates back to a gathering with supporters in The Hague in March 2014, when Wilders asked the crowd ‘and do you want more or fewer Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands?’ To which the crowd chanted ‘fewer, fewer, fewer’. ‘We’ll arrange that,’ Wilders said, smiling, when the chanting died down

The chanting, and other comments made several days earlier, led to two MPs, MEPs and a handful of local and provincial councillors breaking ties with the PVV. The public prosecution department also received over 6,400 complaints.

In 2010, Wilders was found not guilty of inciting hatred and discrimination at an earlier trial. Legal experts say the new case against Wilders is stronger than the previous one.