Europe

Dutch court sentences six men over murder of journalist in 2021

Investigative reporter Peter R de Vries was shot on a busy street in Amsterdam

Peter R de Vries died in hospital nine days after he was shot in Amsterdam. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP

Peter Cluskey in The Hague
Wed Jun 12 2024 - 18:04

Six men have been sentenced to jail terms of 10-28 years for their involvement in the murder of Dutch investigative journalist Peter R de Vries in July 2021.

Mr de Vries (64) was shot several times at close range in a busy Amsterdam street and died in hospital nine days later. The court in Amsterdam said the murder had “severely shaken Dutch society” but said there was not enough evidence to convict any of the defendants of “murder with terrorist intent”.

The 24-year-old man who pulled the trigger, Delago G, and the driver of the getaway car, Kamil E (38), were each convicted or murder and sentenced to 28 years for what the judges described as a “ruthless” attack as Mr de Vries was leaving the studios of broadcaster RTL.

Krystian M (29), described as the organiser of the murder and a link to the unnamed person who ordered it, was also convicted of murder and sentenced to 26 years, in addition to a separate four-year sentence he is already serving.

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“The crime shows there was a premeditated plan and each of the three knew he had to play his part for it to be successful,” the judges said.

The public prosecutor had demanded life sentences for those three defendants but the court decided this was “inappropriate” because none had previous convictions for murder or manslaughter.

The man who provided firearms for the killing, Konrad W (31), was sentenced to 14 years for complicity to murder. He had originally been hired as the killer but decided it was “too risky” to carry out such an attack in a public place without a silencer for the gun.

Two others, Erickson O (29) and Gerower M (27), were originally charged with “raising fear with terrorist intent” by filming the shooting and its aftermath and posting it on social media. Each were sentenced to 10 years, but the reference to “terrorist intent” was removed from the convictions.

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Although the killing had “severely shaken Dutch society”, this did not necessarily entail terrorist intent, the court decided.

A seventh man, Ludgardo S (35), was acquitted on a charge of complicity to murder but sentenced to four weeks in jail for a drugs offence. Two others, Divainy K and Christopher W, were acquitted on all charges.

Mr De Vries’s former wife Jacqueline, his son Royce, and daughter Kelly, were in court for the verdict.

At the time of his death, Mr de Vries was acting as an adviser to a key witness in the trial of Ridouan Taghi, formerly the Netherlands’ most wanted criminal who was sentenced to life imprisonment earlier this year for murder and drug trafficking.

Peter Cluskey

Peter Cluskey

Peter Cluskey is a journalist and broadcaster based in The Hague, where he covers Dutch news and politics plus the work of organisations such as the International Criminal Court

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