“Right through that kk head and body. He’s dead.” With those words, Delano would have informed G. shortly after the murder that he had killed Peter R. de Vries. According to the justice system, the message was sent by G. on July 6 last year at 7.30 pm from a moving car in Amsterdam. “Everything squirted. That blood. Everyone screams”, G. app. according to justice.
The 22-year-old G. is one of the two suspects against whom the Public Prosecution Service today demanded life. The other man, a 36-year-old Pole, must receive the same sentence from the judiciary because he acted as a driver and scout around the attack.
Sven Brinkhoff, professor of criminal law at the UvA in Amsterdam, is not surprised that the Public Prosecution Service has demanded two life sentences. “If you kill such a figurehead in this way, it causes enormous social unrest. The Public Prosecution Service feels a duty to address that unrest and, according to them, only one sentence is appropriate: lifelong.”
It is the strictest possible requirement: lifelong in the Netherlands actually means lifelong. Since 2016, after 25 years in prison, it has been assessed whether someone is allowed to work on a possible return to society, but that is by no means certain. “Since 2016, the life sentence has been slightly less drastic, which may have also played a role in the OM when it decided to go for the most severe sentence.”
Parallels with the Wiersum case
Justice has long doubted whether it should be 30 years in prison or life, it turned out in court today.
Both the judiciary and Brinkhoff see parallels with the case surrounding the murder of lawyer Derk Wiersum in 2019. The suspects were also demanded for life in this case. Just like De Vries, Wiersum was shot in the street and the murder shocked society. “The Wiersum case was a murder of the same caliber,” says Brinkhoff. He therefore does not find it strange that the suspects of the murder of De Vries are also being demanded for life.
The public prosecutor referred to Wiersum several times in the indictment. According to the judiciary, the murder of De Vries fits in the same row, as does the murder of the brother of a key witness. According to the OM, all three cases can be traced back to the Marengo trial against Ridouan Taghi. “What is the probability of mere coincidence? How could this not be related?” said the officer.
‘Provide a crystal-clear signal’
The officer noticed something else today. “There is an upward trend in the imposition of penalties in these cases.” Brinkhoff also sees that. “For several years, increasingly severe sentences have been demanded. We see this in the Passage case (in which Willem Holleeder is on trial) and in Marengo. The murders of Wiersum and De Vries are seen as an attack on the rule of law that carries the most severe punishment imaginable. deserves.” The officer spoke of a “crystal clear signal” that killings to instill fear and terror will not be tolerated.
Who exactly fulfilled which role on 6 July seemed less relevant today. Although it was G. who, according to the Public Prosecution Service, shot several times at De Vries, driver and ‘spotter’ E. also had an important part. Brinkhoff: “It is legally possible to also label the person who did not pull the trigger as the perpetrator of this murder.”
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