Police identify 2 gunmen among 32 held over Overasselt killing
Investigators looking into the armed raid on a farm in Overasselt in Gelderland have identified the two men who shot a 51-year-old security guard dead at the gate. The guard, from Wijchen, was killed when dozens of armed people arrived at the property of a convicted criminal in early September. Two police officers were wounded in the same incident.
The identification was made from witness statements, camera footage and forensic evidence, and sources close to the investigation have confirmed that police now know exactly who the two men are. Both are among the 32 people still being held. They are suspected of murder or manslaughter, and the same suspicion applies to the rest of the group even though most of them did not fire a shot.
Reporting on Sunday 20 September added a further element. The wider group is said to have gathered the night before the raid in a warehouse in Belgium, where the instruction given was to kill everyone at the farm. Dutch reporting links the violence to a missing consignment of cocaine. The name of a fugitive drug trafficker has been raised in connection with it, and he has denied any involvement through his lawyers.
None of this has been tested in court. Identification by investigators is not a charge, and a charge is not a conviction. The public prosecution service has not confirmed the detail about the warehouse. The 32 people in custody are suspects, and a court will decide what any of them did.
For residents of Overasselt and the surrounding villages of Gelderland, the practical point is that a large group is in custody and the investigation has moved from finding those responsible to establishing what each of them did. If you live nearby and hold camera footage from the nights around the raid in early September, it can still be handed to police. Anyone with information who does not want to be named can use the national anonymous crime reporting line.