Dutch lawyer Derk Wiersum was shot dead on the streets of Amsterdam this week, with some believing the shooting was tied to a major Moroccan mafia drug case.
The shooting took place on Wednesday morning at around 7:30 a.m. and saw the assassin fleeing the scene on foot, according to police, who say they have not made any arrests in the case so far, Le Figaro reports.
Before his fatal shooting, Mr Wiersum was the lawyer of a star witness in a major drugs case against Moroccan mafia members Ridouan Taghi and Said Razzouki, the Netherlands’ most wanted criminals.
Jan Struijs, head of the NPB police union, slammed the shooting and said: “It’s the confirmation that we live in a narco-state.”
The NPB has previously made similar accusations of the Netherlands being a “narco-state”. In 2018, the union was slammed by Dutch Minister of Justice and Security Ferdinand Grapperhaus who rejected the term.
Journalist Remco Andringa called the shooting of a lawyer on the streets of Amsterdam “unheard of”.
The shooting comes three years after Moroccan gangs were believed to be behind leaving a severed head in the middle of a street in Amsterdam.
The head of victim Nabil Amzieb, who is believed to have belonged to a rival gang, was pointed towards a local shisha bar named “Fayrouz” that is said to have been a meeting place for North African criminal gangs, according to Dutch police.
From 2012 to 2016, nearly 20 people had been killed by members of the so-called “MORCO mafia” in what was dubbed the “MORCO War”.
The killing of the Dutch lawyer also comes only weeks after famous Swedish lawyer Henrik Olsson Lilja was shot in the head and chest in Stockholm.
Olsson had previously briefly taken on the case of American rapper A$AP Rocky who was accused of, and later found guilty of, assaulting an Afghan man.
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