John van den Heuvel’s security team has not been informed of online searches by Ludgardo S., a suspect in the Peter R. de Vries murder case. Report that NU.nl and RTL Boulevard based on files they have in their possession and sources related to the investigation. In the months prior to the murder of De Vries, S. searched for ‘John van den Heuvel’, among other things. Van den Heuvel, who has had heavy security for five years, calls it “extra painful” against RTL Boulevard that he first heard about the searches through the media.
Van den Heuvel thus refers to the shocking findings of the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) about the security of the three murdered persons from the circle of crown witness Nabil B. – his brother Reduan, lawyer Derk Wiersum and confidential adviser Peter R. de Vries – in the Marengo process. The OVV speaks of conflicting interests, broken promises, missed details, and structural miscommunication within the Public Prosecution Service. According to the OVV, the police had concrete indications in all three murders that an attack might be imminent.
A spokesman for the Public Prosecution Service informed NU.nl and RTL Boulevard on Saturday that errors were also made in communication to Van den Heuvel. “The team investigating the attack on De Vries has shared the information with the police team that deals with the threat surrounding John van de Heuvel,” says the spokesman. That team would then not have shared the information with the police, while they estimate the risks of searches of suspects, among other things. Logically, Van den Heuvel’s security team subsequently received no risk assessment from Monitoring and Security. “That should have happened,” said the spokesman.
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Ludgardo S., who was arrested last January, also searched online for terms such as ‘key witness Nabil B.’ and ‘Peter R. de Vries security’. The fact that he researched this prior to the murder attempt on De Vries could lead to a higher sentence if he were convicted. The OM suspects that S. ordered De Vries to be filmed after the crime journalist was shot.