The research in ‘The secret of Rijswijk’ is impressively thorough ★★★★☆

In March 1985 in Rijswijk a band that is practicing is ambushed by two heavily armed men. Three of the band members, boys in their twenties, are shot at close range, the other two barely manage to escape. It is still unclear 36 years later who is behind these horrific murders and with what motive.

In The secret of Rijswijk investigates NRC-journalist Anna Korterink why the case has remained so under the radar all these years. Her search starts with a police file with ‘secret’ on it, which she finds in the office of her father, the crime journalist Hendrik Jan Korterink, who died in 2020.

In ten episodes an image emerges of an attack with political motives, which has also been shelved for political reasons. All traces seem to lead to Suriname, to the regime of Desi Bouterse. Tensions had run high around 1985 between Bouterse supporters and the resistance movement that operated from the Netherlands after the December murders. Both the Surinamese weekly newspaper as the Liberation Council for Suriname, both anti-Bouterse, resided in the same office building where the band rehearsed that evening.

The research by Korterink and producer Mirjam van Zuidam is impressively thorough. They speak to everyone from relatives to police officers involved in the case, from suspects to President Chan Santokhi himself. In search of answers, they encounter many closed doors and unwilling people, but they also make interesting discoveries. For example, Winnie Sorgdrager, former Minister of Justice, reveals in the podcast that in 1997 she was about to have Bouterse arrested for drug smuggling, but that Hans van Mierlo opposed her as Minister of Foreign Affairs because he was ‘in love with Suriname’. Korterink and Van Zuidam also speak with a man who has been identified as a possible murderer by eleven witnesses, but whom no one has ever questioned before.

The secret of Rijswijk is the type of journalistic podcast that takes you through every step of the research. That is exciting, but sometimes it also feels a bit cumbersome: as a listener you may not have to hear Korterink explain again in every phone call why she is calling. Or follow the complete progress of a lunch with a former ambassador who does not let go very much. It can all become a bit much, and it sometimes fans out very wide.

Anyway outlines The secret of Rijswijk a fascinating picture of the difficult relationship between Suriname and the Netherlands in those early years of Bouterse. And it’s nice that the podcast closes with a preview of how things might move forward now, under Santokhi, with this case and other injustices of the past.