The Telegraaf newspaper has released security camera footage of Tuesday morning’s attack on the company’s editorial offices near Sloterdijk station in Amsterdam.

The footage shows the white van making two attempts to plough into the building before the driver gets out and sets the van on fire. He then runs off into a waiting car.

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has described the attack on the Netherlands’ biggest paper as a ‘slap in the face for the free press’.

The van used in the attack is a white Volkswagen Caddy and after the attack, the driver was picked up in a dark Audi, police said. They are calling for any witnesses to come forward, police said.

‘We will not be intimidated,’ editor in chief Paul Jansen said. The paper has been threatened before but is too early to speculate who may be behind the attack, he said. ‘We are naturally all very shocked. This is a violent thing to have happened.’

The Telegraaf is the biggest Dutch paper with a high profile for populist stories, crime and sport.

Last week, the nearby offices of the Panorama weekly news magazine were shot at by an anti-tank missile. A 41-year-old member of a motorbike gang has been arrested in connection with that incident.

‘Last week Panorama and now us, the free press is under attack,’ Jansen said. ‘It is a worrying development.’ The paper’s crime correspondent John van den Heuvel is already under heavy security due to his reports on organised crime.’