AMSTERDAM (CN) — Dutch prosecutors have asked for a life sentence for two men charged with the 2021 murder of journalist Peter R. de Vries.
Delano Geerman and Kamil Egiert have denied involvement in the killing, which shocked the Netherlands and raised questions about just how powerful the criminal underworld has become in the country.
De Vries was gunned down in broad daylight on a busy street in Amsterdam last July as he was walking to his car following a television appearance. He died in the hospital a week later. His murder was seen as an attack on free media and widely condemned.
“It’s an attack on a courageous journalist and by extension, an attack on the freedom of the press, which is so essential for our democracy and rule of law,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said at the time.
At the start of trial Tuesday, the prosecution asked the District Court of Amsterdam to impose rare life sentences for Geerman and Egiert.
“The great shock to society, the murder of an innocent citizen, is an aggravating circumstance,” said a prosecutor whose name was withheld for security reasons. Spillover rooms with a livestream were needed to house some 60 members of the public who turned up to watch the trial.
Geerman, a 22-year-old Dutchman, was largely uncooperative during the hearing.
“I make use of my right to silence,” he told the judge when asked if he killed de Vries.
Egiert, a 35-year-old Polish national residing in the Netherlands, claimed he was only hired to drive Geerman and had nothing to do with the murder.
“I did not kill that man,” Egiert said via a translator.
The two suspects were arrested less than an hour after the shooting. Witnesses at the scene saw two men getting into a Renault Kadjar, which was spotted by police on the highway near The Hague. The weapon used to shoot de Vries and a cellphone with texts discussing murder were both found in the getaway car.
"He's dead...That blood, everyone screaming. He didn't move anymore,” one message read. The messages made it clear that the murder had been coordinated with another person whose identity is not known.
Security camera footage from the night of the killing shows two men resembling the suspects parking the Renault Kadjar in the city center of Amsterdam and walking along the street where de Vries had parked his own car in a garage. De Vries is seen walking out of the studio back to his car, five shots can be heard and then he crumples to the ground. Kelly de Vries, the journalist’s daughter, asked to leave the room before the video of her father’s death was shown.
Both of de Vries' children chose to make victim impact statements, telling the judges how much suffering their father’s death had caused. The siblings asked both men to turn and face them as they spoke.
“The way you didn't dare to look at my father when you shot him from behind,” Kelly de Vries told the men.
Her brother Royce choked up as he described his father's role in his life. "A father who walked hand in hand with me every Saturday to the soccer club," he said.
The pair, together with de Vries’ girlfriend Tahmina Akefi, have asked for the court to award them nearly 400,000 euros ($426,000) in compensation.
Prosecutors argued that de Vries' murder was connected to his involvement in the Marengo trial, a massive gangland case with 17 suspects charged with five murders. At the time of his death, de Vries was serving as a confidant for the main prosecution witness in the case. Both the brother and the lawyer of the witness have also been killed, in what the prosecution described as a “black mark on the rule of law.”
De Vries rose to prominence after covering the 1983 kidnapping of Heineken heir Freddy Heineken by Willem Holleeder. The journalist was later awarded an International Emmy for his investigation into the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005.
The trial will continue next week. A verdict is expected in July.
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