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Fears Mount Following Attack on Dutch Journalist
Did “cocaine baron” Ridouan Taghi commission a hit job on Dutch star reporter Peter R. de Vries?
The assassination attempt casts new light on the power of drug gangs in the Netherlands.
By Steffen Lüdke und Alexandra Rojkov
09.07.2021, 18.58 Uhr
Ridouan Taghi had many code words for "murder." He sometimes spoke of "letting someone sleep" or wanting to "deactivate" someone in the encrypted messages he sent to confidants that were reviewed by investigators. But it appears that they always meant the same thing: Taghi wanted to kill someone for getting in the way of his drug business.
Investigators believe the Dutchman with Moroccan roots was involved in the cocaine trade, and that he rose to become one of the country’s biggest smugglers. Taghi has been in prison since December 2019, and for years, he has been considered "public enemy No. 1" in the Netherlands. Prosecutors accuse him of having run his criminal organization "like a well-oiled machine."
But the killings believed to be linked to Taghi didn’t stop with his arrest.
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 28/2021 (September 9th, 2021) of DER SPIEGEL.
On Tuesday evening, Peter R. de Vries, the country’s most famous journalist, left a television studio in downtown Amsterdam, where he had appeared at 6:30 p.m. on a show called "RTL Boulevard." De Vries walked down Lange Leidsedwarstraat toward the public parking lot where he had left his car. Then shots rang out. According to media reports, five bullets were fired at de Vries, with one hitting him in the head. He collapsed and lay motionless on the ground. De Vries is still fighting for his life in the hospital.
The attack on the reporter shocked the Netherlands. The Dutch see their country as open and liberal – and not as the kind of place where journalists must fear for their lives. Politicians and reporters in the country view the attack on de Vries as one against the rule of law. And many suspect that "cocaine baron" Ridouan Taghi, a man who has long made a mockery of that rule of law, is behind the attack.
Opponents in a Drugs Trial
He(??) and de Vries and Taghi are opponents in the Netherlands’ most high-profile drug trial. In addition to being an experienced crime journalist, de Vries also works as a TV host and a media consultant. At the time of his shooting, he had been working with a man named Nabil B., a former accomplice of Taghi’s. In the past, B. had organized getaway cars for the drug lord – but when an attempted murder went wrong, B., fearing for his life, turned himself in to the police. Now, he wants to testify against Taghi in court.
The attack on the reporter could be a message from the underworld, an attempt to intimidate Nabil B., the key witness.
Many people in the Netherlands were deeply shaken the day after the attack, but also angry that an act like this was even possible. Many are now calling for tougher measures in the fight against the drug mafia. And more security for the journalists covering their crimes.
Amsterdam residents have laid down a sea of flowers at the narrow street where the crime happened, along with a jersey from Ajax Amsterdam, de Vries’ favorite football club, and one of his books, with a strip of masking tape on its cover scrawled with the word "Hero!"
Crime reporter Peter de Vries: When investigators gave up, he stepped in. Foto: Dingena Mol / HH / laif
Mothers pass by with their daughters. An Uber Eats courier pauses reverently at the site. People quietly step up to a barrier, someone can be heard sobbing.
"I heard the bang and immediately turned around," says Bas Jansen, describing the moment of the attack. Jansen operates one of the many restaurants on the street. The restaurateur asked that his real name not be printed out of fear that the killer or his accomplices might go after possible witnesses.
"I saw a man fall over in the distance," Jansen says. It was only when he got closer that he realized it was de Vries, who had often passed his business. "His face was covered in blood," the restaurateur says. "De Vries was lying completely lifeless on the ground."
Milan, a young man with skinny jeans and an undercut, has come to lay a bouquet of flowers with a friend. He wants to send a message. "Everyone in the Netherlands knew de Vries,” he says. "It was a shock."
De Vries became famous by working on cold cases that remained unsolved by police. When investigators gave up, de Vries would step in and start researching. He solved several. Among other achievements, he helped convict the killer of Nicky Verstappen, a boy who had been sexually abused and murdered.
His work on those cases made de Vries famous in the Netherlands, where he could be seen on TV almost every week. Over the years, he increasingly began switching roles, and began working as an adviser to athletes and as a confidant to witnesses wanting to testify against gangster bosses. People like Nabil B., who stood up to "cocaine baron" Taghi.
The day after the crime, Taghi’s lawyer denied that her client had had anything to do with the attack on de Vries. The accusations against him lacked any "factual basis," her law firm wrote in a statement.
So far, there has indeed been no evidence that Taghi ordered de Vries’ murder. The reporter has made many enemies over the course of his career. Little is known about the two suspects arrested by Dutch police after the attack – nor is there a clear link to Taghi. But other evidence points in the drug lord’s direction.
Since the news emerged that Nabil B. intends to testify as the key witness against Taghi, several people in his circle have been murdered. B.’s brother was shot to death in spring 2018 and his lawyer was killed in September 2019. Media outlets that have reported extensively on Taghi’s drug career have also been threatened. And in 2016, Martin Kok, a former criminal and blogger who wrote about organized crime, was killed. "That dog has to sleep,” Taghi reportedly typed in an encrypted message before the murder. In June 2019, someone rammed a van into the front of the offices of the De Telegraaf newspaper. The daily had reported on Taghi’s alleged drug dealings, among other things.
But the attempted murder of a nationally known reporter like de Vries goes beyond the pale. Even fellow journalists who knew about Taghi’s brutality are appalled by the escalation of the violence. Few wanted to talk openly the day after the attack. And those who are willing to do so talk about their worries: about their profession, but also about possible personal harm to them.
"I’m happy I’m not a crime reporter anymore," says Bert Huisjes, the editor in chief and director of WNL, a public broadcaster. "Everyone is afraid." With each new attack, the fear that other reporters will be targeted is growing. "The windows of my house are bulletproof glass," Huisjes says. "My newspaper paid for it at the time. But few media outlets can afford that."
"We now have the characteristics of a narco-state."
One journalist who wished to remain anonymous explains how he now carefully weighs how much he writes about Taghi. He says one detail too many could cost you your life. Taghi is vindictive and hates it when people speak ill of him, he says. A few crime reporters now have 24-hour bodyguard protection, but de Vries had always refused such security.
Yelle Tieleman is one of the reporters Huisjes wouldn’t want to trade places with. Tieleman, a tall, brawny 32-year-old with a broad grin, works for Algemeen Dagblad, one of the country’s major daily newspapers. He has spent years reporting on Taghi and his cocaine business, unwittingly at first. It only later emerged that Taghi had apparently commissioned the murders that Teileman had been writing about since 2015.
Tieleman says he just fell into it. He, too, has since taken precautions. Very few people, for instance, are allowed to know where he lives. "The attack on de Vries is a new low, and we’ve had a few," Tieleman says. He says the shooting was a message to all journalists that the gangs are also willing to resort to extreme measures. "I had no idea it was going get this dangerous," he says. "I didn’t choose this." Nevertheless, Tieleman says he doesn’t want to give up his job as a crime reporter. "But no story is worth as much as my life."
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an organization that advocates for press freedom around the world, has called on Dutch authorities to investigate the attack on de Vries "swiftly and thoroughly" and ensure that the people behind the attack are brought to justice. "Journalists in the EU must be able to investigate crime and corruption without fearing for their safety," CPJ said in a statement this week.
But it is getting increasingly difficult to do that in the Netherlands – in part because of the growing power of the drug gangs. The ports of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium have become huge transshipment points for narcotics. From there, they are distributed across Europe.
A report commissioned by city officials in Amsterdam concluded that drug-related crime has an impact on the entire city. It states that money is laundered in restaurants and shops and that the proceeds are then funneled into real estate. "We now have the characteristics of a narco-state," says Jan Struijs of the Dutch police union. "Our economy is increasingly dependent on money from the bad boys." That is undermining rule of law and, through local corruption, Dutch democracy.
Proximity to the Underworld
Although outgoing Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus declared war on the gangsters years ago, he hasn’t succeeded in curbing crime. "Is Minister Grapperhaus losing his war on the drugs?" the respected daily NRC Handelsblad recently asked in a headline. Right-wing populist Geert Wilders attacked the current government on Twitter the day after the assassination attempt. Wilders jeeringly asked what the justice minister has actually been doing since the attack on Nabil B.'s lawyer. The minister, he argued, obviously hasn’t given the police any more money.
"The problem of drug-related crime just didn’t seem urgent enough," explains Marieke Liem, who conducts research on such murders at Leiden University. On average, she says, 20 people are killed each year in the Netherlands in connection with drug-trafficking. "But we usually don’t see or hear much about these deaths. It’s different with de Vries. Perhaps politicians will now realize that they need to do more.”
The victims are usually couriers or the drug bosses’ henchmen. De Vries wasn’t any of those things. But he sought proximity to the underworld. "He talks to everyone, including criminals,” says Huisjes, his colleague.
Other reporters had warned de Vries that he was crossing a line and putting himself in danger with his work for Nabil B. But de Vries brushed aside their concerns. He once even quipped that if you can’t handle death threats, you’re better off working at a women’s magazine.
With additional reporting by Lisa Dupuy and Govinda den Hartog
Macron announces French bases in Mali to begin closing
in coming months amid restructuring of Sahel mission
9 Jul, 2021 16:16
FILE PHOTO. A French soldier of the 2nd Foreign Engineer Regiment prepares his equipment at a temporary forward operating base (TFOB) during Operation Barkhane in Ndaki, Mali. © Reuters / Benoit Tessier
President Emmanuel Macron has said France will start closing its bases in northern Mali before the end of the year, with the move to be completed by the beginning of 2022 as it restructures its military presence in Africa’s Sahel.
Macron’s announcement was made on Friday during a summit with the G5 Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania), with the president saying that French bases in Mali’s Kidal, Tessalit and Timbuktu will close.
The closures of the French bases in Mali are expected to commence in the second half of the year, he said, and be fully completed by 2022. Alongside this, troops will be withdrawn from the Sahel region in a phased manner, to about half of the current 5,100 contingent.
However, the former colonial power will still have an interest in securing stability in the Sahel region, with Macron saying that France “will remain committed” there, but by taking a different approach.
“Our enemies have abandoned their territorial ambitions in favour of spreading their threat not only across the Sahel, but across all of West Africa," Macron said at a press conference with Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum.
"We are going to reorganise ourselves in line with this need to stop this spread to the south, and it will lead to a reduction of our military footprint in the north," the French leader added.
France launched its campaign against jihadist terrorists in the Sahel in 2013 under then-President Francois Hollande, as the threat was deemed to be of significance to the safety of the European continent and the West African region.
The almost decade long deployment has not been the success it was initially hoped, with the anti-terrorism campaign becoming dubbed ‘France’s Afghanistan’. The Islamist extremist groups plaguing the Sahel show little sign of abating, and domestic French support for the military involvement dwindled to lower than 50% in May 2021.
On June 10, Macron declared France’s ‘Operation Barkhane’ in Mauritania, Chad, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso would be drawn to a close and French troops withdrawn. At least 50 French soldiers have died in Sahel since 2013.
G5 - Sahel
At least 8 killed in police convoy bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia
10 Jul, 2021 11:17
A suicide bomber has attacked a convoy in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, on Saturday in an attempt to assassinate a local police chief. At least eight people were killed, according to a witness report.
Somalian media quoted the country’s police as saying that a vehicle rigged with explosives hit a convoy carrying Banaadir’s regional police chief, Colonel Farhan Qarole, who survived the attack.
An eyewitness told Reuters that he has seen eight bodies, including the body of a woman, while another early report said that five were killed.
News website All Banaadir reports that two police officers have died and two were injured. Several buildings were said to have been damaged, including a children’s hospital.
No one has claimed the responsibility for the attack as yet, but Islamist group Al-Shabaab frequently carries out bombings in Mogadishu and elsewhere.
Since the early 1990s, the Horn of Africa nation has de facto been a fractured country, with multiple factions fighting in a protracted civil war.
Bangladesh factory owner among those arrested after
over 50 workers die locked inside inferno
10 Jul, 2021 14:12
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Hashem Foods Ltd. factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 9, 2021.
© Reuters / Mohammad Ponir Hossain
New details of breaches of safety regulations and the suspected use of child labor have emerged as Bangladesh deals with the aftermath of its latest factory fire. At least 52 people died in a blaze at a food and drinks factory.
Police have detained eight people over the fire, which broke out on Thursday and raged for two days at a factory not far from the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. The owner of the factory, Abdul Hashem of Hashem Foods Ltd, and his four sons are among those arrested on charges of murder, AFP reported, citing police.
“It was a deliberate murder,” said Jayedul Alam, police chief for the Narayanganj district where the factory is located. A case has also been launched against the chairman of the factory’s parent company, Bangladesh’s multinational Sajeeb Group, according to local media.
Having battled the flames for two days, firefighters said they had discovered that several doors which should have allowed the workers to get to safety were padlocked. The exit door to the main staircase was locked, a fire services spokesman said, and one of the staircases leading to the rooftop was also closed, leaving workers trapped inside the burning building.
“The fire is everywhere, father. The gate is locked,” one of the factory’s senior operators said in a brief phone call from the burning building, local bdnews24 reported.
Claiming that multiple safety regulations were breached at the factory, fire service officials said that the building needed at least four to five emergency staircases, while only one was available. Nearly 200 workers were inside the factory when the fire erupted, an administrative officer told local media.
Most of the charred bodies were recovered from inside the factory, but several workers died jumping from the windows of the six-story building, desperate to escape. The bodies of those who died in the flames were burned so badly that DNA tests will be needed to identify them, police said.
Relatives of the victims mourn at the site after a fire broke out at Hashem Foods Ltd. factory, July 9, 2021.
© Reuters / Mohammad Ponir Hossain
Family members of those who worked at the factory have gathered near the building to protest and demand justice, while local activists have also spoken out, calling for a fair probe and compensation for the victims. “We demand speedy trial and punishment of those responsible for this tragic murder incident through a fair investigation,” the nonprofit Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.
The owner of the factory has denied allegations that the building had faulty fire systems. A separate inquiry has been launched into working conditions at the factory, as reports of underage workers have emerged. Children as young as 11 years old might have been employed there, AFP reported, adding that the State Labor Ministry is now looking into the case.
Local media said 14-year-olds might have worked there, but also referred to factory authorities who claimed they may have deliberately given an older age at the time of recruitment. One of the fire victims, who was 16 years old, worked for a salary of Tk 5,000, equivalent to $60, bdnews24 reported, citing her family members.
The Hashem factory blaze might become one of the worst in Bangladesh’s grim record of industrial disasters, which are often the result of poor working and safety standards. The South Asian country, where millions are employed at factories, pledged to improve labor and safety conditions following the infamous Rana Plaza collapse — a 2013 accident in which a building that housed a garment factory crumbled, killing over 1,100 people.
However, a series of other disasters have occurred since then. In 2016, nearly 40 people died in a blaze at a food- and cigarette-packing factory in Dhaka. Last year, 70 people died in an apartment block inferno in the capital, while the deadliest Bangladeshi factory fire to date happened in 2012, killing at least 117. And just two weeks ago, at least seven people were killed and dozens injured as a building housing shops and a restaurant was reduced to rubble by an explosion in central Dhaka. A gas pipeline blast has been named as the likely cause.
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