Thursday, March 28

Children of shot crime reporter confront accused in Dutch court | netherlands


The children of a Dutch crime reporter who was fatally shot last year have confronted his alleged killers in court.

Peter R de Vries, 64, was shot in the head outside an Amsterdam television studio in July 2021 in a crime that prosecutors say was linked to his role in the trial of a Dutch drugs mafia kingpin.

A Dutch man identified as Delano G, 22, is accused of the shooting, and Kamil E, 36, a Polish national, is alleged to have carried out surveillance and driven the getaway car. Prosecutors are demanding that both men be jailed for life for murder.

Addressing Delano G at Amsterdam district court, de Vries’s daughter Kelly said: “I am looking at you, like you didn’t dare to look at my father when you shot him down from behind.” The accused looked back across the room without showing any emotion.

“Why did you shoot him? Formoney? Because you didn’t agree with him?” she asked both men. She told the accused “I hate you”, but she said she could “bring myself to treat you with humanity”.

“Your children will realize what their fathers have done – at least I can be proud of mine. People will say that he was a hero, ”she said, with her brother ella Royce sitting next to her.

The court watched video of the killing. Images from various vantage points in the city, including a nearby cafe, appeared to show Delano G and Kamil E walking around the area shortly before de Vries was shot.

The court then saw images at a distance of de Vries crossing the street, a figure running behind him and then the moment when he was shot and fell to the ground. De Vries died in hospital nine days later.

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“I invoke my right to silence,” Delano G answered when the judge Gert Oldekamp asked him directly if he had shot de Vries.

“I did not murder this man,” Kamil E told the judges in Polish.

The court heard about a message sent shortly after the killing from a phone on which Delano G’s DNA was found, which said: “He is dead, KK, dead. The bullet went right through his head. Everything spurted. Everybody screamed.”

Police stopped a car on a motorway near The Hague less than an hour after the shooting and arrested the pair. Four shell casings found at the scene allegedly came from a pistol with Delano G’s DNA on it that was found in the car. Gunshot residue was found on both men’s hands, the court heard.

Prosecutors showed a detailed animated graphic of the movements of de Vries and the suspects on the day, and how Kamil E had previously tailed him in the run-up to the killing.

There was but one conclusion, that Delano G and Kamil E “knew exactly who to murder”, said one of the prosecutors. He said de Vries was “murdered in broad daylight, in the heart of Amsterdam.”

De Vries was a household name with his own TV show. Prosecutors suspect he was killed because of his role as adviser to a state witness, Nabil B, in the trial of the Netherlands’ former most wanted man, Ridouan Taghi, an alleged drugs baron who was arrested in Dubai in 2019. The brother and the lawyer of Nabil B have been shot since he turned state’s witness.

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A verdict in the de Vries case is expected on 14 July.


www.theguardian.com

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