A 38-year-old man has been jailed for 18 years for ordering a murder attempt on a leading figure in the Amsterdam underworld in Diemen in 2015. The court ruled that Naoufal 'Noffel' F, a career criminal, had pulled the strings in organising the attempted killing of Peter 'Pjotr' R, who survived the attack. Last year, five men who were involved in the attack on R were jailed for up to 20 years. The victim of the attack managed to drive off after three men in balaclavas fired at his car. He ended up in a nearby canal.   More >

Inhabitants of a nursing home in Rotterdam featured in a television series on care for the elderly, have been abused by staff and fellow inhabitants in the last year, Trouw has found. Based on statements from a whistleblower and other documents, the paper says several people living in the Leeuwenhoek home, which looks after dementia patients, were verbally and physically abused. The home is part of the care group Humanitas which reported one instance of abuse to the health inspectorate last year. What happened specifically cannot be disclosed for privacy reasons but a forensic doctor was called and police involvement was considered, the paper says. The home was blacklisted by the inspectorate in 2016 but was given a clean bill of health last year. But according to the whistleblower, the abuse continued, and took place away from the cameras. Trouw’s anonymous source also contacted two geriatric psychologists who, based on documents and photos, judged the treatment meted out to the inhabitants to be ‘inhuman’ and ‘something we have not come across before’. The paper was told that other external care specialists, such as psychiatrists, doctors and physiotherapists had written to the management of the care home threatening to stop working there because they could not guarantee the safety of their clients. Family Family members, who talk of bruises and staff shouting at their elderly relatives, told the paper that complaints about staff behaviour were ignored. Gijsbert van Herk, chairman of the board at Humanitas, told the paper he ‘recognised’ part of the accusations but that  the problem is being ‘magnified’ because the number of abuse cases is ‘super few’. Multicultural According to Van Herk, staff behaviour is a reflection of where the home is situated: in a multi-cultural part of Rotterdam. ‘It’s no excuse’, the paper quotes him as saying, ‘but here things happen which would not take place in, say, a care home in the countryside. There are 160 different cultures coming together in this one home. 'If you look at the level of care at the Leeuwenhoek from the point of view of a care professional from Maastricht, well, yes, it would not be acceptable. But looking at it from an Antillean standpoint, you wonder what’s the problem?’, he told the paper.  More >

Seven more youngsters aged 15 to 21 have been arrested in connection with the recent attack on a gay man in Dordrecht who had made a date through the gay dating site Grindr, news website Nu.nl said on Tuesday. Six of the seven come from Dordrecht and the seventh, who is 17, comes from Harreveld. In total, 13 youths have now been arrested as part of the investigation. Detectives say they have now rounded up everyone they think is responsible for the attack on one man and attempted attack on a second. Both men had made dates via the website. All 13 youths currently being held in custody but four will be released on Thursday, the public prosecution department said.   More >

Police raided 14 premises across the south of the country on Monday in a major investigation into the production of synthetic drugs. In total, six people were arrested in the raids, which took place in Venlo, Echt, Eindhoven, Den Bosch, Schijndel, Uden and Velden. In total, 100 police officers were involved in the campaign. In #Echt duizenden liters grondstof aangetroffen. In loods. Werd vermoedelijk gebruikt voor toeleverancier. pic.twitter.com/MbYEStuOOF — Landelijke Eenheid (@PolitieLE) April 16, 2018 All the properties were either used as storage or as production centres, police said. Further details about the investigation will be published later on Monday. On Saturday, police found three tonnes of hashish and chemicals for the production of ecstasy during a raid on a storage centre in Geleen. However, that case is not connected to Monday’s raids, police said.  More >