The top journalist, the mafia boss and the gunman: Dutch fear the rise of ‘narco crime’

While Peter R de Vries fights for life in an Amsterdam hospital the nation reflects on how to end the grip of drug gangs

Five gunshots blasted like fireworks on a sunny evening, just behind Amsterdam's busy Leidseplein. To the horror of the Netherlands, a cold-blooded shooting has left prominent Dutch crime journalist Peter R de Vries fighting for his life in hospital.

Everyone from European leaders to the Dutch king Willem-Alexander and Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema have expressed their shock at the ambush of national hero" De Vries as he walked back to his car on Tuesday after recording a chatshow, on a busy street in broad daylight.