Status: 13.10.2022 1:38 p.m
Another trial for the murder of Dutch journalist de Vries begins today: Two suspected henchmen are sitting in the dock. Premier Rutte compares the fight against the masterminds with a hydra.
The alleged shooter and his getaway driver have had to answer for the murder of Peter de Vries for several weeks. And as of today, three more men are charged in a separate second trial, also with the murder of the investigative journalist.
It’s good that the police and judiciary worked so quickly and professionally, says Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema: “It’s important for the sense of justice and because of the huge wave of emotions that’s sweeping through the country. There’s sadness, anger, fear of chaos, fear that there will be more There might be casualties. It fixes a little – not all – of the immense hurt of such an assassination.”
TV interview aired posthumously
The five shots at such a popular TV journalist in the middle of cosmopolitan Amsterdam in July last year sent the Dutch into a collective shock. Also because the drug mafia, worth billions, is probably behind it again. In one of the largest drug mafia trials, the 64-year-old de Vries last looked after a key witness. The brother and lawyer of this key witness had also been shot before – de Vries was aware of the risk that his work meant.
In one of his last TV interviews – published only now after his death – he said: “A true bloodbath in the Netherlands… There were several murders and attempted murders of many who play a role and a message was intercepted. There it said: If the key witness tells the story, his family will go to sleep. In other words, they will be killed, liquidated.”
Peter de Vries’ daughter Kelly, his daughter-in-law Amanda and son Royce de Vries in the courtroom (file photo from 06/15/2022).
Image: AFP
Fight against “Hydra” drug mafia
Nevertheless, de Vries, who has been researching organized crime for decades and tracked down criminals in his own TV show for years, did without bodyguards.
“My father did his job for 40 years. He wasn’t naive,” says his son Royce de Vries. “I reject the fact that some are now saying that about him because he had no personal security. In the past he has repeatedly had to deal with the biggest criminals in the Netherlands and has always judged it well.”
Royce de Vries is a lawyer. Together with his sister Kelly and his mother Jacqueline, he says he wants to continue his father’s educational work in one way or another. The family is now represented in court as a joint plaintiff. The government in The Hague also assumes that only henchmen, suspected contract killers, are in the dock. There the drug mafia is mentioned as a hydra. The fight against it, says Prime Minister Mark Rutte, is difficult and will take a long time.