Dutch Crime Reporter De Vries Dies after Shooting
Dutch investigative reporter Peter R. de Vries, a specialist covering the criminal underworld, died in hospital on 15 July, a little over a week after being gunned down in an Amsterdam street.
The attack on De Vries came three months after another reporter covering a similar beat, Greece's Giorgos Karaivaz, was shot outside his home in Athens.
Two suspects were detained in the shooting of de Vries, who was famous in the Netherlands for work that included covering the 1983 kidnapping of the millionaire brewer Freddy Heineken and for his own TV show, working with victims’ families and chasing cold cases.
“Peter fought to the end but was unable to win the battle,” said De Vries’ family in a statement. “He died surrounded by the people who love him. Peter lived by his conviction: ‘On bended knee is no way to be free.’.”
De Vries was shot five times after leaving a TV show in the heart of the Dutch capital. The attack came as a shock to officials and those in the European Union who considered the country safe for journalists even as reporters are under siege across the bloc.
The two men being held were identified only as Maurik G, a 35-year-old Polish national, and a 21-year-old Dutchman, Delano G, who police said they believe fired the shots.
De Vries had received death threats over the years for his fearless reporting about crime figures and in the last year had been an adviser to the key prosecution witness against Ridouan Taghi, The Netherlands’ most wanted criminal.
Derk Wiersum, a lawyer for the witness known as Nabil B, was shot dead in the street shortly after leaving his house in Amsterdam in 2019. Dutch media have reported that Delano G, the suspected killer of De Vries, was a nephew of one of Taghi’s lieutenants, while Polish media reported that the other suspect is wanted there for robbery.
Taghi was apprehended in Dubai and extradited to The Netherlands in 2019. His arrest was hailed in The Netherlands at the time. The Ministry of Justice and Security claim he led a major cocaine smuggling operation and had a hand in 11 killings.
Several lawyers have quit the Taghi case over safety concerns but de Vries reportedly did not want any security. “If you have police on your left and right, they can still shoot you from the front,” he said in an interview.
Fellow journalists like Eddy Van der Ley questioned de Vries over this decision, but he was adamant.
“He used to say, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’,” van der Ley told Al Jazeera. “He knew he was taking a risk, but he was fearless”.
Before De Vries’ death was announced, Dutch Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said that an investigation would examine whether the government had provided the reporter with proper security.
Taghi remains jailed while awaiting trial along with 16 other suspects.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte said: "We owe it to Peter R. de Vries to make sure justice is served. We cannot and will not ever tolerate this in the Netherlands. This act of cowardice can't go unpunished”.
No Journalist Safe
EU officials have denounced a line of assaults and killings of journalists but convictions of the main culprits have been thin on the ground. There has still been no accountability for whomever ordered the murders of Malta investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galiza in October, 2017 and Slovakian journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kušnírova in February, 2018.
Marián Kočner, a businessman charged with ordering the Kuciak murder was acquitted in 2020 (the man who pulled the trigger, Miroslav Marček, admitted his role and was sentenced to 23 years in prison). High-level suspects in the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia, who investigated corruption involving the highest levels of the Maltese government, have yet to be brought to trial.
Reacting to the attack on De Vries, European Council leader Charles Michel tweeted, “This is a crime against journalism and an attack on our values of democracy and rule of law.”
Dutch King Willem-Alexander, and his wife, Máxima, said they were shocked and added that, “Journalists must be able to do their important work freely and without being threatened.”
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists called on Dutch authorities to investigate if De Vries was targeted for his work and said journalists in the EU “must be able to investigate crime and corruption without fearing for their safety”.
“Peter R. de Vries was always dedicated, tenacious, afraid of nothing and no one. Always seeking the truth and standing up for justice,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a tweet. “And that makes it all the more dramatic that he himself has now become the victim of a great injustice.