Henk van Essen will succeed Erik Akerboom as chief of police from 1 May. His appointment was approved by the Council of Ministers on Friday.
59-year-old Van Essen has been a member of the police force since 2013 and since 2016 he has been deputy chief of police. Akerboom will leave the police from 1 April and will become the new head of the AIVD intelligence service from 1 May.
In a first reaction Van Essen says he wants to “continue building a corps in which the human dimension and professionalism are central”. He emphasizes that officers within the corps must be able to feel safe “to be who they are”.
Minister Ferd Grapperhaus (Justice and Security) calls Van Essen a “skilled, very experienced police officer”, for which there is a lot of support.
“With him we can continue to build on important changes that have been initiated in recent years and the task ahead of us. Such as replacing many experienced police officers who will be leaving in the coming years and tackling subversive and digital crime.”
Van Essen was previously chef in The Hague
Before Van Essen became part of the police force, he was chief of the then police region Haaglanden.
At the end of January, Akerboom announced that he would succeed Dick Schoof as director general of the AIVD. In the past, he was also the National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV).
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