John Mieremet - Background

Background

The 44-year old 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 relates 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.