John Mieremet
| John Mieremet | |
|---|---|
| Born | 10 May 1960 Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Died | 2 November 2005 (aged 45) Pattaya, Thailand |
Johannes (John/Johnny) Mieremet (10 May 1960 – 2 November 2005) was a Dutch underworld figure associated with the Willem Endstra extortion and assassination. Born in Amsterdam, Mieremet was murdered at the age of 45, while conducting business in Pattaya, Thailand at around 10:00 a.m. local time. He had survived several earlier assassination attempts; one in 2002, and another on 26 February 2005, when he was shot in the leg and stomach by two perpetrators on a motorcycle.
Mieremet's former lawyer Evert Hingst had been gunned down two days earlier, on Monday 31 October 2005. Hingst's murder was one of several in a string of three related underworld liquidations during late October and early November 2005 and one in a longer series of liquidations that has started in 2000.
Mieremet was widely feared in the Amsterdam underground. He was considered to be a regular business partner of Sam Klepper who was himself assassinated in October 2000. The duo was known as Spic and Span due to the supposedly efficient, effective and undetectable manner in which they got rid of their opponents. No criminal investigation directed at Mieremet was currently being conducted. Just as Klepper he seemed to be invincible to the authorities' efforts. Another famous partner of the duo was Klaas Bruinsma.
"Let them get rid of each other. Great." This was Mieremet's reaction when he heard about the murder of Evert Hingst. Just a few days before his own demise, on the evening of Hingst's murder Mieremet gave a telephone interview to crime reporter John van den Heuvel for his new television programme. "They all know too much about each other and now they are messing around amongst themselves. They don't trust each other anymore, fun huh?".
"This actually makes me happy. I know that I survived Evert. That's one thing that's sure. He belonged between the garbage where he was lying on Monday evening."
The obviously gleeful statements probably relate to the fact that Mieremet accused Hingst of being involved in the nearly-successful assassination attempt on his life in Amsterdam. In 2002, while leaving Hingst's office, who at the time was one of his lawyers, Mieremet was targeted by a gunman and was seriously wounded. After his recovery he openly talked about the connections between the real-estate business and the underworld in an interview given to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. He named Willem Endstra, who himself was assassinated in 2004, as the 'underworld banker'. He suspected Endstra to be one of the instigators of the attempt on his life.
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