De Vries investigation uncovers links to organised crime
Peter De Vries
A listening device placed in a car by Dutch police reportedly recorded a suspect saying that an organised crime figure ordered the killing of Dutch investigative journalist Peter de Vries.
De Vries was shot dead in July 2021 on a busy Amsterdam street. His murder came three months after the similar daylight murder of investigative journalist Giorgos Karaivaz in Athens. The cases have highlighted the dangers to journalists working within the EU.
The report in Dutch newspaper NRC suggests that Morroccan-Dutch national Ridouan Taghi, wanted de Vries dead. Taghi is the main suspect in the ongoing Marengo trial in which 17 people are facing charges of multiple actual and attempted homicides connected to organised crime.
Taghi is being held in a maximum security prison after being arrested in Dubai in 2016. The FBI is said to have warned Dutch officials that Taghi was able to communicate outside the jail by bribing guards, according to an earlier NRC report.
De Vries was a confidant of a key witness in the Marengo trial, who has been identified only as Nabil B. Two other people close to Nabil B., his brother Reduan and his lawyer, Derk Wiersum, were shot dead previously.
Five people have been arrested in connection with De Vries murder but none have been named in line with Dutch privacy regulations. Two men were arrested near The Hague soon after De Vries was shot and are currently on trial for his murder.
Prosecutors asked for life sentences for both, one of whom is said to be the getaway driver. A Polish suspect identified only as Krystian M. was arrested in July 2022 on suspicion of helping instruct two hit men to carry out the killing. This arrest has been described as a breakthrough in the case, providing a link to Taghi.
Two other suspects, who are Dutch, were arrested in Spain and Curacao, accused of filming the killing and uploading it to social media as a warning to other potential witnesses not to talk.
The arrest in July of a Polish suspect was seen as a breakthrough in the case, said Dutch News, the man suspected of directing the killing, providing a link to Taghi's alleged role.
This week, police in Poland arrested a second man there as a suspect in the killing. Dutch prosecutors told AP the man was believed to have helped prepare the attack and was living in Rotterdam at the time of the murder. Dutch authorities have requested his extradition from Poland.