Peter R de Vries “fight for his life” after the Amsterdam shooting | Crime News

After the crime reporter was attacked, Dutch society was shocked. He has handled and solved some famous cases over the years, including some of the most significant mistakes in the country’s judicial history.

The famous Dutch crime journalist Peter R de Vries is fighting for his life after he was killed Shot on the streets of Amsterdam city center On Tuesday night, the Dutch authorities said.

Witnesses told the local media that De Vries was a celebrity journalist in the Netherlands. He was known for exposing well-known criminals in the Dutch underworld and speaking on behalf of crime victims. He was shot in the head and body.

This attack has had an impact on Dutch society. Over the years, de Vries has been dealing with and resolving famous cases, including some of the most significant judicial errors in Dutch criminal history.

The police said the 64-year-old journalist and TV presenter had been shot up to five times, adding that three people were arrested, including a Polish and a Dutch. The third suspect has been released.

Although the motive is not clear, De Vries has made many enemies over the years.

“Last year, De Vries served as a confidential adviser to the royal witnesses in the trial of Ridouan Taghi. Ridouan Taghi is a well-known criminal leader. Arrested in Dubai in 2019“,” Wouter Laumans, a crime reporter for the Dutch daily Het Parool, told Al Jazeera. “With this, De Vries chose a camp in a very explosive triad conflict where many people have been killed. “

Taghi, who was born in Morocco, is wanted by an international arrest warrant for murder and drug trafficking. According to Dutch media reports, the organization he ran was allegedly involved in nine assassinations and multiple attempted murders.

As in 2019, security around the case is tighter, and the state’s lawyers for witnesses Dirk Wilsham was shot On the street outside his house in the south of Amsterdam.

De Vries was filmed at around 7:30pm local time (17:30 GMT)-Amsterdam is still daytime at this time of the year-and he left the TV studio after participating in a talk show.

Het Parool quoted a resident as saying that she heard five gunshots and went out to see what happened. She said that she saw De Vries lying on the ground with a lot of blood on his face.

She told the newspaper that he could not speak but was alive, and while waiting for emergency services, she held his hand.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte said at a press conference in The Hague that the attack on De Vries was “shocking and incredible.”

“This is an attack on brave reporters, and then an attack on freedom of the press, which is vital to our democracy and the rule of law,” he said.

In a statement, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists called on the Dutch authorities to “quickly and thoroughly investigate the shooting” and “to determine whether he was targeted because of his work, and to ensure that the attacker and the planner of the attack are subject to legal sanctions.”

European Union Representative Tom Gibson of the Committee for the Protection of Journalists said, “European journalists must be able to investigate crime and corruption without worrying about their safety.”

‘Black day’

Rutte and Attorney General Ferdinand Grapperhaus (Ferdinand Grapperhaus) met in the evening at the Dutch National Security and Counter-Terrorism Coordinator (NCTV) to discuss the shooting.

Attorney General Ferdinand Grapperhaus told reporters: “This is a black day, not only for those close to Peter R. de Vries, but also for the freedom of the press. In terms of.

“In the Netherlands, we hope that journalists can conduct any investigations that must be completely free. This freedom was seriously violated tonight.”

The Committee for the Protection of Journalists called on the authorities to “determine whether his work is a target and ensure that the attackers and attackers are subject to legal sanctions.”

Messages of solidarity flooded Dutch social media, including news from the royal family. They posted on the official Facebook page that they were deeply shocked by the news. De Vries and his relatives were thinking about them.

No stranger to threats

In the past, De Vries received police protection after receiving threats related to his involvement in high-profile criminal cases as a reporter and court witness.

The kidnapping of beer tycoon Freddy Heineken in 1983 is one such case. His book on the case was later made into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins.

In 2016, De Vries filed a death threat complaint against one of the men involved in the kidnapping of the notorious gangster Willem Holleeder.

He won the International Emmy Award for deciphering the experience of the American teenager Natalee Holloway, who disappeared from Aruba in the Caribbean in 2005.