The first trial was conducted under a Dutch judge of the District Court in Rotterdam in March. During the trial, the judge admitted that he felt as if it was obvious that arrest leading to the hearing had created a spectacle and that the group members ideologies were being greatly scrutinized. The lawyers who defended that group labeled the trial as a "witch trial". It was clear that the ideological threat the Hofstad group had posed stirred the emotions of the public. The judge ruled that in the case of the Hofstad group there was a clear distinction between peaceful and harmful extremism. The judge ruled that four of the members to be acquitted because they showed no attempt for violence but only held extremist ideas. The judge also ruled that the group was not a terror organization.