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NETHERLANDS

Volleyball boss arrested over Dutch murders

A judge remanded in custody on Tuesday a Spaniard suspected in the killing of a Dutch volleyball player and her boyfriend — murders that may have been the result of a business deal gone wrong.

Volleyball boss arrested over Dutch murders
Men look at a poster asking for information about the whereabouts of Dutch volleyball national team player Ingrid Visser and her partner Lodewijk Severein in Murcia. Photo: Manuel Lorenzo/AFP

The judge in Valencia remanded 36-year-old Juan Cuenca and ex-director of volleyball CAV Murcia after questioning in a closed-door investigation into the killing of the Dutch couple, said a court official who asked not to be named.

Spanish media reported that the suspect was the former manager of a volleyball club in which the dead woman, Ingrid Visser, had played.

The bodies were found buried in a lemon grove in Murcia, southeastern Spain. Police said Monday they arrested three people, including two Romanians, in Valencia.

The court in Valencia was expected to question the two other suspects on Wednesday.

Police were waiting for the results of DNA tests to confirm whether the bodies were those of Visser, 35, and her partner Lodewijk Severein, 57.

The couple disappeared on May 13 shortly after checking into a hotel in Murcia.

The city's police chief Cirilo Duran told a press conference on Monday that they had suffered a violent death.

Spanish media, citing sources close to the investigation, reported that the two were found in a shallow grave, cut into pieces, and may have been tortured.

Duran said investigators suspected the couple had "business disagreements" with the suspects that had led to the killing.

Visser was part of the Netherlands's gold medal-winning team at the European Championship in 1995 and played for a volleyball team in Murcia between 2009 and 2011.

A spokesperson for the families, Miriam Van de Velde, has criticized Spanish media for publishing "unnecessary details" of the case, reported El Mundo newspaper on Tuesday.

This was chiefly because "the family had yet to receive official information," said the spokesperson. 

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TERRORISM

Swede among ‘terror’ suspects arrested in the Netherlands

Dutch police have arrested four men including a Swedish citizen suspected of being involved in terror-related activities, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Swede among 'terror' suspects arrested in the Netherlands
Stock image/Depositphotos

“Rotterdam police detained four men early on Sunday evening on suspicion of being involved in terrorism,” the public prosecution's office said in a statement.

One of the men, aged 29, arrived on a flight from Stockholm earlier on Sunday while the other three aged 21, 23 and 30 come from the cities of Vlaardingen, Delft and Gouda in southwest Netherlands.

Dutch police raided three homes in the three cities and seized data but found no weapons or explosives, the statement said.

Although “there is no concrete information to indicate a terror attack, police and the public prosecution's office are not taking any chances,” prosecutors said without giving further information.

The suspects remain in custody pending a court appearance.

A Dutch citizen was sentenced to four years in November for preparing a terror attack following his arrest in Rotterdam last year, when police discovered an assault rifle and a large amount of fireworks.

In another scare, Dutch military police shot and wounded a man armed with a knife at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport earlier this month, but authorities said the incident was not terror-related.

The Netherlands has so far been spared from the slew of terror attacks to have rocked its closest European neighbours in recent years.