It is good that the government has earmarked more money for the protection of ‘people in the front line’ in the fight against subversive crime.
‘Brother ahahahah. He is dead. Right through that kk head and body. That blood. Everyone screaming.’ With these words, suspect Delano G. reportedly reported to his client that he had shot Peter R. de Vries. It is all so ugly that Royce de Vries, the victim’s son, in his statement Monday, on the first day of the trial against G. and co-defendant Kamil E., no longer wanted to address them. “Completely pointless,” he concluded.
The text messages and the events on the day of the attack, reconstructed in this newspaper on Monday, make it clear that the suspect belongs to the new class of hitmen: boys with a limited conscience, limited sense and total lack of empathy who, in the equally flawed language of the streets celebrate their deeds. The amateurish negligence stands in stark contrast to the implications of the murder, which not only ended the life of a beloved and conscientious human being, but also constituted another attack on the rule of law.
The banality of evil is increasingly also accompanied by stupidity, a study by the GGD showed a few years ago: today’s murderers are regularly former street rascals with a low IQ, from families in which upbringing was secondary, for whom it was fast money from the drug trade with his cars, clothes and watches seems the only route to respect. Even as teenagers, some of these errand boys turn out to be murderers.
Of course, the perpetrators are not ultimately responsible. De Vries was the confidant of Nabil B., the key witness in the lawsuit against drug dealer Ridouan T., who is suspected of a series of liquidations. The brother of the key witness and his lawyer were also murdered. The perpetrators were acting on behalf of a ‘murder broker’, who had probably received the order from T.. That is where the greatest unscrupulousness lies.
But the murder of De Vries shows that a life is worth even less than in the eighties and nineties, when these kinds of ‘jobs’ were done by local professionals and then flown in by murderers from the former Yugoslavia. There wasn’t even a second getaway car ready for the likely culprits, and no money either. ‘No duku, nothing’, G. appended, once on the run. The killer turned out to be a cheap disposable soldier, plucked straight off the street. He had yet to test the weapons that day in an industrial area.
Their interchangeability is worrisome: even if you pick one up and put it away (both suspects were sentenced to life sentences yesterday), there is another one ready for the next assignment. Together, these fringe figures can touch the heart of democracy. Partly due to the murder of one of our most important crime journalists, the Netherlands fell 22 places in the press freedom ranking of Reporters Sans Frontières.
That is why it is good that the government has earmarked more money for the protection of ‘people in the front line’ of the fight against subversive crime. Tragically, that came too late for Peter R. de Vries.
The position of the newspaper is expressed in the Volkskrant Commentaar. It is created after a discussion between the commentators and the editor-in-chief.