Man arrested on the island of the Caribbean for the murder of 2021 of the famous reporter of the crime Peter R. de Vries

Dutch prosecutors said that Monday’s authorities on the Caribbean island of Curacao have arrested a man “who played a main role” in the high profile murder of Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries Four years ago.

From Vries was Throwing to the daylight thrown In a busy Amsterdam street in July 2021, causing an effusion of pain and concern for the influence of organized crime in the Netherlands.

“The 39 -year -old man was arrested Monday at Willemstad in Curacao,” said the Dutch public prosecution service.

“It is suspected that man plays a main role in a criminal organization that aimed to commit violence and that he was behind the murder of De Vries, among other things,” prosecutors said in a statement.

A Dutch court last year issued long prison sentences to three of the main suspects In the murder, sentencing the organizer of the coup at 30 years, while two other men received 28 years. Three other men received sentences between 10 and 14 years for complicity in murder.

The last suspect, born in Curacao but had Dutch nationality, has been behind bars on the island since 2014.

“The detectives continued their investigation into those who ordered the coup in De Vries,” said the prosecution service.

“Man emerged as a suspect during the course of investigation into the highest levels of the criminal organization,” he said.

The man will be transferred to the Netherlands soon, where he will appear before a judge, the prosecutors added.

De Vries, who, according to the reports, had the phrase “in the folded knee is not a way of being free” tattooed in his calf, made his name as a journalist of the crime that reported and wrote a best -selling book about the kidnapping of 1983 of the beer magnate Freddy Heineken. Later in his career, he campaigned tirelessly to solve cold cases.

De Vries also won an Emmy in 2008 for his coverage of the disappearance of Alabama Teen Natalee Holloway in Aruba.

The celebrity journalist moved to television, where he directed his own crime program called “Peter R. de Vries, a crime reporter.”

Prosecutors believed that the coup was linked to De Vries’s role as an advisor to a witness against the bottle of the King of Drug Ridouan Taghi.

But last year’s judgment dictated that since Taghi was not part of the trial, a defined link between that case, known as Marengo, and the trial for murder of VRies could not be established.

De Vries, however, revealed in 2019 that the authorities had informed him that he was on a list of successes stopped by Taghi, who in February last year received a perpetual chain for a series of murders committed by his gang.

During the Test 2022 For two of the suspects, the closed circuit television images showed that VRies were filmed. The court saw images at a distance from De Vries crossing the street, a figure that ran behind him and then at the time the journalist was shot and fell to the ground. De Vries’s daughter, Kelly, asked to leave the courtroom when the footage was shown.

The Association press contributed to this report.

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• Murder
• Netherlands