Supergrasses will go on despite lawyer’s murder

Dutch prosecutors vowed yesterday to continue using supergrass witnesses in the fight against organised crime after an informant’s lawyer in a major drug case was murdered in Amsterdam. Lawyers and prosecutors in big drugs cases were put under special protection after the murder, raising fears the Netherlands was turning into a narcostate.

Derk Wiersum, a 44-year-old father of two and lawyer for Nabil Bakkali, a witness in a case against two men dubbed the Netherlands’ most-wanted criminals, was shot on Wednesday.