Louis Sévèke

Who was Louis Sévèke?

Jean Louis Bernhard Sévèke was a Dutch radical left activist, journalist and writer. He was known for his legal action against the Police and the Dutch intelligence service.

On November 15, 2005 he was murdered, aged 41, in the town centre of Nijmegen. Since that time rumours of involvement of police or secret services have been abound. A year after the murder the police seemed to have made little headway. It has been suggested that the Dutch secret service had a 24/7 surveillance on Sévèke at the time of his murder; however, there were no signs of information coming from the secret service to the police.

On March 28, 2007 the public prosecutor on the case revealed that a 38-year old man from Rotterdam, named Martinus Hendrikus T. according to the Spanish police, had confessed to the murder. The murderer and victim knew each other from the squatting movement. The following day, it was revealed that revenge might have been the motive for the murder. Some people suggest that Sévèke suspected T. to be an informant of the intelligence agency, and T. had "sworn revenge" in his diary for being removed from the squatting scene because of that suspicion.