Eight people have been injured after a black Peugeot smashed into pedestrians outside the central train station in Amsterdam. Six people were taken to hospital, two are in a serious condition. Two others victims were treated at the scene.
According to the Dutch newspaper, Het Parool, police spoke to the driver and asked to see his licence which he showed them. The man then drove off, hitting several people, and ploughed into a low wall next to an entrance to the metro.
Amsterdam police said officers have arrested the driver, saying there was “no indication whatsoever” that the car incident was an extremist attack. The car crashed at the entrance to the metro station.
“The suspect has been interviewed, and it appears not to have been intentional. But we are investigating further,” Amsterdam police said on their Twitter account.
According to their official statement, the driver, a 45-year old Amsterdam man, was approached by police on Saturday for an infringement after which he drove into a wall. Police sources told The Telegraph the driver became “unwell” and “did not intend” to crash the car. The vehicle reportedly has a cracked windscreen.
The driver had been parked somewhere on the tramway track, and asked by law enforcement agents to move his vehicle. He then drove away and became “unwell due to low blood sugar levels”, after which he injured eight people.
Eyewitnesses tell a completely different story. Several witnesses told Dutch news channel AT5 that the car had been driving at high speed from a different direction, questioning the police statement.
A witness, who at the moment of the incident switched to tram 26, was surprised at the police’s version that the man became unwell.
“I saw the car standing on the tram rails and thought well, if there is going to be an attack, then this is it. The driver was approached by two agents. I looked at them and walked on. I was about a hundred yards further when the car speeded away. It looked to me as if the man was intentionally fleeing from the police, but you will not be told the truth.”
The car followed the tram rails towards Damrak and finally hit a wall at the entrance of the metro. “He followed the curve [of the road].”
A second witness, who had been walking towards the Stationsplein, at the time also gave a different account. “I was on the west side and had just walked through the bike tunnel to tram 5,” the man told AT5.
“I was talking with a friend when he shouted my name. “Run, run,” he said. I looked to the right and saw a black Peugeot coming towards me at high speed.” The two men jumped aside and saw how the car stopped because trams were in the way.
“Two agents then went to the man to ask for his driver’s license. One of the agents signalled to colleagues that they had to join him. The other agent returned the driver’s license to the man and seemed to gesture ‘drive on’.”
According to the witness, who had been less than ten meters away from the car, the driver made an irritated impression. “He snatched the driver’s license more or less from the hand of the agent. Then, with a phone in his hand, he started the car and drove into the crowd at full speed. We saw people flying through the air literally.”
The car had speeded up while driving, the witness said.
“There was panic, you heard people screaming. I myself am convinced that there is no possibility that the man had become unwell. I’ve read that everywhere and that’s very frustrating. In my view, he had just made two attempts! The police should have noticed that something was not right. This was not just an accident.”
The station and surrounding area was sealed off, Dutch railway company NS said. Tram services which terminate at the station’s main entrance were rerouted.
Dutch police would not release the name of the driver, suggesting that they did not want to alert the public to a possible Islamist attack.
The incident happened exactly a week after a terror attack at London Bridge which left eight people dead and dozens wounded. The Netherlands has been on high alert following the slew of attacks in other European cities in recent months
A Dutch citizen was arrested late Friday after being caught filming outside one of the country’s largest stadiums during a concert, police said.
The 29-year-old Amsterdam man was arrested outside the Philips Stadium in southern Eindhoven where Dutch pop singer Guus Meeuwis was performing. He could give no explanation of why he had been filming infrastructure at the event, NDTV reported.
The suspect has been radicalised, police believe, and detained for a second night Saturday. Meeuwis went ahead with his concert as planned.
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