Gangster John Mieremet killed in Thailand

2 November 2005

AMSTERDAM — Top Dutch gangster John Mieremet was killed in Thailand on Wednesday, his friends have told the media.

Mieremet was approached by the pillion passenger of a scooter at his real estate office in Bang-Lamung near Pattaya. The killer exchanged some words with the victim and then shot him in the head. The killer and his accomplice escaped.

The murder is the latest in a series of killings of Dutch crime figures in recent years. Mieremet’s former lawyer, Evert Hingst, was shot dead in Amsterdam on Monday.

It was suggested in 2002 that Mieremet was considering testifying in court about his knowledge of the Dutch crime scene. This didn’t happen.

Mieremet was however prepared to talk to the media. Crime reporter John van de Heuvel had “extensive” telephone contact with Mieremet following the murder of Hingst on Monday, the journalist’s newspaper ‘De Telegraaf’ said.

Hingst was murdered a day before he was due to record an interview for Van de Heuvel’s new television show ‘Bureau Misdaad’ (Crime Office).

Mieremet was a top figure in the Dutch underworld. He was schooled in crime in the gang around Holland’s most infamous drugs baron Klaas Bruinsma. After Bruinsma was murdered in front of the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam in June 1991, his former henchmen, such as Mieremet and Sam Klepper, went on to become major players in the Amsterdam underworld.

Mieremet and Klepper earned the joint nickname “Spic and Span” for allegedly dealing with their rivals in a ruthless fashion. Klepper was shot dead in 2000.

Mieremet’s name surfaced after the murder of Heineken kidnapper and brothel owner Cor van Hout in 2003.

Following an unsuccessful attempt on his own life in February 2002, Mieremet said Hingst had colluded in the murder bid which he said was organised by property tycoon Willem Endstra.

Mieremet alleged that Endstra was the “banker to the underworld” and suggested Hingst was the “consigliere” or adviser to organised crime.

Endstra was murdered in May 2004, allegedly after falling out with a former associate Willem Holleeder.

Holleeder was one of the men convicted along with Cor van Hout for kidnapping beer magnate Freddy Heineken in 1983.

The police have not had much success in solving the string of underworld assassinations in the last 15 years.

Martin Hoogland, 48, was sentenced to a total of 20 years for shooting Bruinsma and another drug dealer, Tony Hijzelendoorn, in 1993.

Hoogland was an ex-policeman who had fallen in with the Yugoslavian mafia. Hoogland was shot dead while on an outing from an open prison in Hoorn on 18 March 2004. His murder has not been solved.

Subject: Dutch news