AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A man believed to be Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries has been shot and seriously wounded on a street in Amsterdam, newspaper Parool reported on Tuesday, adding he had been taken to hospital.
Police said in a statement a man had been shot in Amsterdam without confirming his identity.
“A man has just been shot on Lange Leidesdwarsstrat,” the police statement said, referring to a street near one of the city’s largest public squares. “Multiple emergency services have been summoned and police are searching for the suspect or suspects.”
They asked witnesses to call police.
The Parool cited witnesses as saying De Vries had been shot in the head. The paper published an image of the scene with several people gathered around a person lying on the ground.
De Vries is a celebrity in the Netherlands, known for his investigative work following the 1983 kidnapping of beer magnate Freddy Heineken. He became known in the United States for his work investigating the disappearance of teenager Natalee Holloway in 2006.
De Vries has been subjected to threats from the criminal underworld in the past in connection with several cases.
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Chris Reese and Nick Macfie)
