The Dutch security service AIVD investigated Geert Wilders’ Israeli contacts in 2009 and 2010 because of questions about his loyalty and possible outside influence, the Volkskrant said on Friday.

The paper bases its claims on its own investigation into Wilders’ person security over the past 12 years. It says the investigation is unusual because the AIVD is usually reluctant to look into sitting politicians.

Wilders had close connections with a number of influential Israelis until 2010 and often visited the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, the Volkskrant said. However, Jewish community sources say those relationships have since cooled.

In 2010, candidate PVV parliamentarian Gidi Markuszower was forced to withdraw from the election after the AIVD said he posed a ‘risk to the integrity of the Netherlands’.

Wilders reacted on Friday by publishing a photograph of himself with the text: ‘People who want to stop me will have to murder me first’. The text, directed at ‘Rutte, the public prosecutor, the AIVD and the rest of the elite’ is the same used by Wilders on the last day of his trial for racial discrimination.