The brother, the lawyer, now the journalist
The narco-state vs. Peter R. de Vries, crime reporter (1956-2021)
THE NETHERLANDS’ BEST-KNOWN CRIME REPORTER, Peter Rudolf de Vries, died on July 15, nine days after he was shot in the head in broad daylight on a central Amsterdam street. Within hours of the shooting, caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte and justice minister Fred Grapperhaus met the National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism to discuss this “attack on the rule of law,” reported AD.
De Vries, 64, was shot at about 7.30 pm on July 6 in Lange Leidsedwarsstraat, as he walked to his car from a television studio where he had appeared as a guest on RTL Boulevard. A statement from his family, published by RTL, said the journalist died in hospital, in the company of relatives.
His long-running television programme, Peter R. de Vries, crime reporter, was broadcast for almost 17 years from 1995. An obituary on the website of public broadcaster NOS noted “his steadfastness and ability to bring cases to light”. That…