A Dutch court has sentenced three men to lengthy prison terms, up to 28 years, for their involvement in the murder of prominent crime reporter Peter R de Vries nearly three years ago.

On Wednesday, the man who shot de Vries on a bustling Amsterdam street on July 6, 2021, along with another man who drove the getaway car, were sentenced to 28 years in prison. Another individual who organized the assassination received 26 years and one month. Prosecutors had argued for life sentences.

De Vries succumbed to his injuries nine days after the shooting at the age of 64. The murder caused a great shock in the Netherlands and highlighted concerns about the criminal underworld's ability to eliminate a major public figure seen as a threat.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander described the attack on de Vries as “an attack on journalism, the cornerstone of our constitutional state and therefore an attack on the rule of law”.

In total, nine men were charged in connection with the murder. Three were convicted of complicity and received sentences ranging from 10 to 14 years. Another man was found guilty of drug possession but acquitted of complicity in the murder, resulting in a four-week jail sentence.

The suspects' full names have not been disclosed due to Dutch privacy laws.

De Vries, known for his candid media appearances, had a reputation for his television shows, often collaborating with victims' families and doggedly pursuing unsolved cases. His investigative work had previously drawn threats from the criminal underworld.

He gained international recognition for investigating the disappearance of American Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005, which earned him an International Emmy Award.

At the time of his death, de Vries was acting as an advisor to a key witness in the trial of Ridouan Taghi, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment earlier that year for murder and drug trafficking.

The lawyer of the state witness, Derk Wiersum, was also shot dead outside his Amsterdam home in 2019.

That same year, Taghi issued a rare public statement denying that he had ordered a hit on de Vries.

Prosecutors in the de Vries case believed Taghi had instructed the Polish men to arrange the assassination, although Taghi was not on trial in this case.

As a result, the court could not definitively link de Vries’s murder with his advisory role to the state witness.