More than 5,000 people have filed a formal police complaint against far-right politician Geert Wilders after he led supporters in an anti-Moroccan chant after last month’s local elections.

However, despite the volume of complaints, the public prosecution department said on Thursday the chance of prosecution is no greater than if there had been just one complaint.

‘We look at the contents and what Mr Wilders exactly said and in which context,’ the department said in a statement. ‘In principle, one complaint is sufficient. We will take note that so many have been made but that will not influence what Wilders said or if he committed a crime.’

In addition to the formal complaints, more than 15,000 people have reported the PVV leader for discriminatory remarks, the department said.

The department could not say when it will have reached a decision on whether Wilders should face prosecution. ‘It is a difficult and sensitive case so it will take time,’ a spokesman told the Volkskrant.

Chant

Two MPs, one MEP and a handful of local and provincial councillors have broken ties with the PVV since Wilders asked his supporters in The Hague ‘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 when the chanting died down.

Wilders has refused to apologise for the comments and said he was referring to Moroccan nationals with a criminal record.

Labour leader

On Thursday Wilders called on people to also file complaints against Labour leader Diederik Samsom and party chairman Hans Spekman for comments about Moroccans made by them.

He referred to two interviews given by the men in the past. In one, Samsom is quoted as saying: ‘It is correct that they are primarily Moroccan. These lads have an ethnic monopoly on this sort of nuisance behaviour.’

Spekman, according to Wilders, said during another interview: ‘You should humiliate Moroccans who are not okay in front of their own kind.’

If there is any justice either all three of us or none of us should be prosecuted, Wilders said.

Court

In 2011, Wilders was found not guilty of charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims and non-westerm immigrants by judges in Amsterdam.

The court ruled that some of Wilders’ statements were insulting, shocking and on the edge of legal acceptibility, but that they were made in the broad context of a political and social debate on the multi-cultural society.