Court orders new trial in Peter R. de Vries murder after new arrests, delays
The criminal trial against the two men suspected of fatally shooting Peter R. de Vries will start over, the Amsterdam court decided on Thursday. Whether everything, including victim statements and the full substantiation of demanded sentences, will happen again will be determined at a later date, NU.nl reports.
The trial against suspected gunman Delano G. and alleged reconnaissance man and getaway driver Kamil E. made it all the way to just before sentencing when the Public Prosecution Service (OM) revealed new evidence and arrested new suspects accused of orchestrating the crime reporter’s assassination. The court, therefore, reopened the case and postponed its verdict. In the meantime, one of the judges emigrated and had to be replaced.
Dutch law prescribes that if the court composition changes, as happened with the replacement of a judge, the trial must start over unless all parties to the proceedings agree that it can continue. Kamil E.’s lawyer objected to continuing.
Delano G. and Kamil E. are accused of committing De Vries’s murder. According to the OM, G. gunned De Vries down on Lange Leidsedwarsstraat as the crime reporter left the RTL Boulevard studio and walked to his car on July 6 last year. E. drove the getaway car and did reconnaissance around the studio in the period leading up to the murder.
They were arrested on the A4 highway less than an hour after the attack. The OM demanded life in prison against them.
De Vries succumbed to his injuries in the hospital on July 15.
