Italian prize for John van den Heuvel
By MAARTEN VAN AALDEREN

Updated Yesterday, 21:04
Yesterday, 20:59
in INTERIOR


ROME - De Telegraaf reporter John van den Heuvel received last weekend the most important Italian international journalistic award, the Premio Ischia Internazionale. Van den Heuvel himself received the prestigious prize on Saturday evening in a central square on the island of Ischia near Naples.

The Ischia Prize was presented to him by the well-known Italian journalist Mario Orfeo, head of news for the state television channel Rai3. He said he was honored to give the prize to Van den Heuvel because he conducts such important research into organized crime.

The motivation of the jury, consisting of top Italian journalists, who had declared Van den Heuvel the winner of the prize, was:

“Van den Heuvel is seriously threatened with death by the Mocro-mafia, the criminal network. He has described the international drug trade from the inside and has researched organized crime around the world, from Colombia, a key point in the drug world, to Turkey. With his research, he has proven drug traffic by getting through to the most powerful mafias in the world.”

The Italian press was very interested in Van den Heuvel and he had to speak to several journalists. Van den Heuvel, in turn, said he was honored to have received this important prize. He said that the Netherlands can learn a lot from Italy in several areas. Not only in the field of football, but certainly also in the field of combating organized crime. "I hope that the Netherlands and Italy will cooperate well in combating crime," said Van den Heuvel to the audience, which spontaneously applauded.