New evidence has emerged indicating that the investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries was murdered last year because of his involvement in a gangland murder trial.

One of the suspects in the case told his girlfriend in an intercepted phone call that De Vries ‘was always sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong,’ later adding: ‘That’s why they shot him.’

De Vries was shot five times while walking to his car on the Leidsedwarsstraat in Amsterdam in July 2021, as he left a TV studio.

Two men, Delano G. and Kamil E., went on trial in June this year accused of murdering him and fleeing the scene in a getaway car. But the investigation was reopened when new evidence came to light and three more suspects were arrested.

The recorded phone call was made by one of the suspects, 27-year-old Christopher W., EenVandaag reported. He was allegedly given the order to carry out the murder of De Vries in the spring of 2021, but the plan was thwarted in May when he was arrested because he still had part of a sentence to serve for another offence.

Marengo trial

Prosecutors believe De Vries was killed on the orders of Ridouan Taghi, who is alleged to be the head of a gang that planned a string of underworld assassinations between 2015 and 2017.

Taghi and 16 others are currently on trial accused of carrying out six murders and planning another seven over an 18-month period, in what is known as the Marengo case.

In the months before his death De Vries, who made his name reporting on the Heineken kidnapping in the 1980s, had become an official confidant to Nabil B., a key witness in the Marengo case.

A new witness told police in July that De Vries was killed because ‘he, the journalist, helped the crown witness in the case against the Moroccan man.’ Taghi was born in Morocco in 1977 and moved to the Netherlands with his parents at the age of three.

The witness also said that Delano G., the alleged shooter, was due to receive €100,000 for the killing, while Kamil E. was promised €50,000 for driving the getaway car. It is not clear if they ever saw the money, as they were arrested within hours of the murder.