96 year-old Dutch woman confesses to World War II-era murder

A 65-year-old murder mystery has been solved, with the confession of a 96-year-old woman in Holland.

On March 1, 1946, Felix Gulje, the head of a construction company in Leiden, Holland, was shot dead on his doorstep. During the Nazi occupation of Holland during World War II, resistance fighters had suspected Gulje of collaborating with the German occupation authorities. Dutch police officials had arrested Gulje after the war, but he was acquitted on collaboration charges. Indeed, in subsequent years, it's been reported that Gulje actually aided Jews during the occupation; he provided shelter and money, and allowing a banned Catholic group associated with the resistance to use his factory.

Yesterday, Leiden Mayor Henri Lenfrink brought the Gulje affair back into public discussion with an announcement that on January 1, he'd received a letter from Atie Ridder-Visser, a former member of Holland's anti-Nazi Resistance, confessing to Gulje's murder.

Lenferink "said a woman has confessed to the killing, saying it happened in the mistaken belief that Gulje had collaborated with the Nazis," the Associated Press reported.

"On the cold sleeting night of March 1, 1946, Atie Visser rang Gulje's doorbell in Leiden, and told his wife that she had a letter to give to her husband," the AP wrote. "When he came to the door she shot him in the chest. He died in the ambulance, the mayor said, reading a lengthy statement at a news conference."

Visser moved to Indonesia after the war, married, lived for a time in Spain, and then returned to the Netherlands. She never had children. She met with two of Gulje's grandchildren last month, to explain what she had done.

Lenferink said Visser would not be prosecuted for the crime, and urged reporters to leave her alone.

"Even now, after 65 years, the murder should be strongly condemned: It is a case of vigilantism, and is unacceptable," he said, according to the AP. But he added, "Mrs. Ridder-Visser is a very old, very frail woman who hears poorly, is disabled and needs help."

(Photos: Dutch construction firm owner Felix Gulje was killed on his doorstep in Leiden, Holland, in March 1946. Atie Visser-Ridder, 96, a member of Holland's Resistance, confessed to the crime in a letter to the mayor of Leiden, the mayor announced yesterday.)

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DSK Conspiracy - The fastest way to become most hated

The short answer is: being the head of International Monetary Fund and standing in the way of international interests.


Mr Putin, the Russian prime minister, has suggested that Dominique Strauss-Kahn may be the victim of a conspiracy to force him from the head of the IMF.


Vladimir Putin said that he finds it hard to believe that the sex charges against the Frenchman are real and that he may have fallen victim to a shadowy plot to discredit him.

"It is hard for me to evaluate the real political underlying reasons and I do not even want to get into that subject, but I cannot believe that everything is as it seems and how it was initially presented," he said. "It does not sit right in my head."
Mr Strauss-Kahn was apprehended at JFK airport in New York on May 14 for allegedly sexually assaulting a hotel chambermaid.
Russian's prime minister public support for DSK comes days after a French politician alleged that the former IMF chief had said before his arrest that he thought Mr Putin was actively plotting his downfall.


The french politician, Claude Bartolone, stated: "He said the Russians and notably Mr. Putin had formed an alliance with France to try to have him fired from the IMF to stop him running for (French) president."


The Russian prime minister's support for the embattled former IMF boss could be seized upon by his critics who suspect that he is a male chauvinist, a claim Vladimir Putin rejects.
He sparked uproar in 2006 however when he was overheard joking about rape allegations against then Israeli President Moshe Katsav. The Russian was quoted as saying: "What a mighty man he turns out to be! He raped 10 women. I would never have expected this from him. He surprised us all - we all envy him!" Kremlin's spokesman claimed the sense of the controversial(practical) joke had been lost in translation. Mr Katsav was later convicted of rape and is now serving out a seven-year prison sentence.

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