Dutch crime journalist De Vries died after being shot in the street Reuters

Authors: Stephanie van den Berg and Bart H. Meijer

AMSTERDAM (Reuters)-Dutch celebrity crime reporter Peter R. de Vries died more than a week after he was shot and killed on a busy street in Amsterdam. His family and his employer RTL Holland company on Thursday Said that this caused the grief and anger of the family and the family. foreign.

De Vries, 64, is known for his TV shows, where he often cooperates with the families of victims and tirelessly pursues outstanding cases. He has been threatened by the underworld because of his work in the past.

Shortly after the July 6 shooting, two men were arrested on the highway. One of them was a Polish national and is still being detained as a murder suspect.

“Peter fought to the end, but failed to win the battle. He died surrounded by people who loved him,” his family said in a statement issued by RTL Holland.

“He is true to his motto: It is impossible to be free by bending your knees.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte vowed to track down a man who was shot and killed. He described him as a firm and fearless journalist. European Commission President Ursula von der Lein said that more measures must be taken to protect investigative journalists.

According to the Dutch news agency ANP, after hearing of his death, people gathered at the shooting scene to lay flowers.

Risky reporter

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the global media watchdog, said that De Vries’ death showed that Europe “has failed to protect its journalists. The situation has deteriorated significantly since 2017,” RSF spokesperson Pauline Ades-Mevel.

In 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese investigative journalist, died in a car bomb attack. In 2018, a Slovak journalist and his girlfriend were shot dead at home, and in April, a Greek journalist was shot dead near his home.

In paying tribute to De Vries, Rutte said: “This kind of cowardly behavior cannot go unpunished.”

Attorney General Ferd Grapperhaus said an investigation will examine whether the government provides adequate security guarantees for journalists.

De Vries won the International Emmy Award for Current Affairs in 2008 for investigating the disappearance of American teenager Natalie Holloway on Aruba in 2005.

Domestically, he is known for handling numerous cases, including the kidnapping of beer giant Freddy Heineken in 1983 (OTC:).

In 2013, William Hollid, one of Heineken’s kidnappers, was convicted for threatening De Vries. De Vries helped the police with the murder case, which eventually led to Hollid’s sentence to life imprisonment.

In 2019, Ridouan Taghi, currently on trial for murder and drug trafficking, took an unusual step by issuing a public statement denying reports that he had threatened to kill De Vries.