AMSTERDAM (CN) — The celebrated Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries died on Thursday after being shot in the head last week following a television interview.
“Peter fought to the end, but was unable to win the battle,” his family said in a statement to Dutch broadcaster RTL. According to the family, he was surrounded by loved ones when he died.
De Vries was attacked in the city center of Amsterdam while walking to his car last week, following a taping of the daily news show RTL Boulevard. The 64-year-old was well-known for his work on the Dutch criminal underworld.
“It’s an attack on a courageous journalist and by extension, an attack on the freedom of the press, which is so essential for our democracy and rule of law,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said following the July 6 shooting.
De Vries rose to prominence after covering the 1983 kidnapping of Heinken heir Freddy Heineken by Willem Holleeder. The journalist was later awarded an International Emmy for his investigation into the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005.
Most recently, de Vries had been acting as an adviser to a witness, Nabil Bakkali, in a trial of 17 men for a series of gangland killings, including the murder of another crime writer, Martin Kok. Both the brother of the witness and his lawyer have also been killed since the trial began.
De Vries had refused police protection, saying it interfered with his work. He said he was on a hit list of Ridouan Taghi, the alleged drug kingpin at the center of the trial. Taghi’s lawyer, Inez Weski, denied her client was involved in de Vries’ shooting, writing the allegations were without “objective substantiation.”
“Peter has lived by his conviction: 'On bended knee is no way to be free,'” his family said in their statement.
Amsterdam residents placed flowers at the site of the shooting, only a few minutes from the city’s famous Rijksmuseum, a national museum of Dutch arts and history. Last Friday, well-wishers laid four thousand white roses at the base of the city’s National Monument.
“He is a national hero to us all. A rare, courageous journalist who tirelessly sought justice,” Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said in a press conference after the shooting.
Two men - a 21-year old Dutchman and a 35-year-old Polish national residing in the Netherlands - are being held in police custody in connection with the killing. The unnamed men were both arrested less than an hour after the attack took place.
Police say the younger man was the shooter, while the other drove the getaway vehicle. A judge ordered the pair to remain in custody and restricted them to only speaking with their lawyers at a hearing last Friday. According to Dutch media reports, the 21-year old was a first cousin of a man currently serving 13 years in prison for involvement in Taghi’s gang.
The family has asked to be allowed to process de Vries’ death in peace and says that decisions about memorial arrangements would be forthcoming.
The shooting is the latest in a series of attacks on journalists across Europe. In 2017, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb outside her home, following her reporting on corruption amongst Maltese politicians. In 2018, Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak was murdered in his home after reporting on tax fraud committed by prominent Slovakian business people and politicians.
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