Dutch crime reporter De Vries dies after being shot in street By Reuters

By Stephanie van den Berg and Bart H. Meijer

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Superstar Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries has died simply over per week after being shot in a busy Amsterdam avenue, his household and his employer RTL Netherlands stated on Thursday, prompting an outpouring of grief and anger at dwelling and overseas.

De Vries, 64, was well-known for his tv programmes, through which he usually labored with victims’ households and tirelessly pursued unsolved instances. He had acquired threats prior to now from the felony underworld in connection along with his work.

Two males who have been arrested on a freeway shortly after the July 6 taking pictures, considered one of them a Polish nationwide, stay in custody as homicide suspects.

“Peter fought until the top however wasn’t capable of win this battle. He died surrounded by the individuals who beloved him,” his household stated in a press release revealed by RTL Netherlands.

“He lived true to his motto: On bended knee isn’t any solution to be free.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte vowed to trace down whoever was behind the taking pictures of a person he described as a decided and fearless reporter. The pinnacle of the European Fee, Ursula von der Leyen, stated extra have to be completed to guard investigative journalists.

After listening to of his dying, folks gathered to put flowers on the scene of the taking pictures, Dutch information company ANP reported.

JOURNALISTS AT RISK

International media watchdog Reporters With out Borders (RSF) stated De Vries’ dying confirmed Europe was “failing to guard its journalists. There was a definite worsening since 2017,” RSF spokeswoman Pauline Ades-Mevel.

In 2017, Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a automotive bomb. In 2018, a Slovak journalist and his girlfriend have been shot useless at dwelling, as was a Greek reporter, close to his dwelling, in April.

In his tribute to De Vries, Rutte stated: “This act of cowardice can not go unpunished.”

Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus stated an investigation would look at whether or not the federal government had supplied the reporter with correct safety.

De Vries gained a global Emmy Award within the present affairs class in 2008 for his work investigating the 2005 disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba.

At dwelling he was identified for his work on quite a few instances, together with the 1983 kidnapping of beer magnate Freddy Heineken (OTC:).

In 2013 Willem Holleeder, one of many Heineken kidnappers, was convicted of creating threats towards De Vries, who had helped police in homicide instances which in the end led to a life sentence for Holleeder.

In 2019 Ridouan Taghi, presently on trial for homicide and drug trafficking, took the bizarre step of creating a public assertion denying reviews that he had threatened to have De Vries killed.