Ex-lawyer shot dead day before TV interview

1 November 2005

AMSTERDAM — Ex-lawyer Evert Hingst was was shot dead in Amsterdam on Monday evening.

He was hit in the head by automatic gunfire on the Gerrit van der Veenstraat in the Amsterdam Zuid district shortly after 6pm. Children were playing nearby as the gunman stepped from a jeep and fired at Hingst.

The gunman and the accomplice sped off after the killing and the jeep was found burning two streets away. The police have launched a large-scale investigation into the latest gangland killing, but no arrests have been made.

As with many previous criminal “hits”, the killers showed little or no regard for innocent bystanders.

“This shooting took place in the middle of the Amsterdam Zuid Halloween trick or treat route,” expat Keren Davis told Expatica.

“Hundreds of expat children and their parents were out on the streets around and about as this happened. The British school was on holiday, but the International School had several children affected.”

Hingst, who is said to have feared for his life, was due to record an interview with crime reporter John van den Heuvel on Tuesday about allegations that he was the “consigliere” (adviser) to the Amsterdam underworld.

The interview was to be broadcast on Van den Heuvel’s new television show ‘Bureau Misdaad’ (crime office).

Hingst was also expected to talk about the claim he set up his former client and reputed gangster John Mieremet for assassination.

Mieremet was shot in the stomach and leg by two men on a motorbike shortly after he left Hingst’s office on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam on 26 February 2002. Mieremet survived and claimed he had been set up by Hingst.

Hingst stopped acting as a lawyer earlier this year after police found two guns in his office. He claimed the weapons belonged to another client, the criminal known as Mink K.
The lawyer was also arrested in 2004 and in April this year for questioning about the alleged laundering of drugs money.

Hingst had also represented criminal godfather Sam Klepper who was shot dead in Amsterdam in 2000.

Yesterday’s murder occurred not far from the location of the assassination of property tycoon Willem Endstra in May 2004. Endstra had repeatedly denied allegations he was the “banker to the underworld”.

Subject: Dutch news