Dutch crime reporter shot in Amsterdam

An award-winning Dutch crime reporter has been hospitalized after being shot on the streets of Amsterdam, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema told the news agency that journalist Peter R. de Vries was wounded Tuesday evening in her city, saying that the journalist was taken to a nearby hospital “where he was fighting for his life.”

Talking to reporters, Dutch King Willem-Alexander condemned the shooting of de Vries, calling it “an attack on journalism, a cornerstone of our rule of law.” 

“And as such it is an attack on our constitutional order,” Williem-Alexander said, according to Reuters. 

This comes as the Netherlands has seen an uptick in killings and violence related to drug trafficking as an attorney linked to a high-profile drug case was gunned down in 2019, according to Reuters. 

De Vries gained notoriety for his work on the disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway in 2005, for which he won an international Emmy. Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, shared her condolences for de Vries. 

“I am trying desperately to get through to his family,” Beth Holloway told Dutch state TV. “I am shocked.”

“My thoughts are with Peter R. de Vries and his family. I’m shocked and alarmed,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter. “I call on the national authorities to clarify the situation and bring the perpetrators to justice.”

My thoughts are with Peter R. de Vries and his family.

I’m shocked and alarmed.

I call on the national authorities to clarify the situation and bring the perpetrators to justice.

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) July 7, 2021

Dutch police said that three suspects were arrested and detained in connection to de Vries’s shooting, Reuters noted.