You see, there’s a reason why Netflix’s iHostage claims that it’s inspired by a true story and not based on one. Director Bobby Boermans and writer Simon de Waal have made a few noticeable changes to the true story, mostly to protect the privacy of the hostages and the authorities involved in the hostage situation. The Bulgarian man who was held hostage at gunpoint by the armed hostage-taker, Abdel Rahman Akkad, pleaded with the local channels and newspaper to remove his name from their reports so he could go back to his normal life and try his best to forget the horrors he was put through on February 22, 2022. As far as the DSI officers and police negotiators are concerned, their names have been altered as well, though many of these officials have given numerous interviews to various media outlets after the incident, sharing how they contained the chaos and extracted the hostages trapped inside the Apple Store and on the first floor of the Hirsch building.
As iHostage began, two police officers patrolling the street heard the gunshots in the Apple Store. They quickly ran towards the location and reported the incident to the control room, where the operators alerted the Special Interventions Service, also known as the DSI. The DSI is a special operations unit and arrest team created in 2006 to handle sensitive situations like terrorist attacks and other similar situations. In the film, we were introduced to three key officers: Winston, the one who ran over the armed assailant in the end; Mark, who was constantly in touch with the four hostages inside the broom closet; Lynn, the negotiator; and Kees van Zanten, general commander of the Amsterdam police, who handled the situation in the control room. Now, the name of the DSI agent who hit the real-life assailant outside the store has been removed from the public record in order to protect his identity and his family’s privacy; however, as per my research, it could be possible that Winston’s character in Netflix’s iHostage was loosely inspired by the real-life DSI agent, Willem, an experienced police negotiator with more than 20 years of experience. On the night of the tragedy, Willem was sitting inside the police HQ speaking with Abdel to listen to his demands and negotiate terms with him.
According to Willem’s interview with De Volkskrant, a Dutch newspaper, he was on his way to his holiday home in Friesland with his wife and dog when he suddenly received a call from a colleague who informed him about the armed assailant who had taken some hostages. Willem quickly turned around and reached the police headquarters to help the authorities deal with the matter and saved the hostages from the assailant’s grasp. As shown in iHostage, the hostage taker did ask for a female negotiator at first; however, she failed to understand what the assailant meant by the bomb detonator, which was when Abdel demanded a man so he could understand the gravity of the situation and acknowledge the fireworks he had brought with him.
In real life, the exchange between Abdel and Willem happened exactly the same way as it was depicted in the film, except for the fact that in iHostage, it was Lynn who spoke with the assailant for a major chunk of time. Willem listened intently to Abdel’s demands and tried to dig into his motive behind the hostage situation, though he didn’t explain his true intentions and just had frequent outbursts revealing his hatred towards the public prosecutors, the justice department, and the government. And the reason for such hatred was quite understandable, as Abdel had been previously convicted for a number of crimes, which he believed had ruined his life.
The film also introduced another police negotiator named Mark, whose character is based on a real-life police officer, Martin. In real life, Martin was the only negotiator who wasn’t working from the HQ. He had parked his car near the Cafe Americain, from where he was constantly in touch with Alex Manuputty, who was hiding inside the broom closet, along with three other hostages. While Martin tried his best to calm down the four hostages so that they wouldn’t start panicking and attract attention, Willem spoke to Abdel first to get his name, which helped the police identify the assailant, and later he raised a few questions to understand the psyche of the armed hostage-taker to understand what drove him to take up arms and demand 200 million worth of cryptocurrency. After talking to Abdel for a considerable period of time, Willem was convinced that Abdel was a loner going through psychological problems. The police later found out that he had taken drugs during the incident and was in heavy debt, which might have forced him to take hostages and demand a ransom. The reports suggest that Abdel had asked Willem to personally deliver water for the hostage, which obviously sounds like an insane idea considering the man was wearing a bomb belt. Willem instantly shrugged off the idea and told him that the robots would bring in the water bottles, which was the exact moment when the Bulgarian hostage escaped the clutches of the armed assailant and made a run towards the DSI vehicles parked on the other end of the road. Abdel tried to catch the hostage but was soon hit by an accelerating armored BMW X5. Throughout this time, Willem was on call with Abdel and kept calling his name even after he hit the ground, but Abdel lost consciousness and stopped responding. I am sure Willem may have felt bad once he found out that Abdel succumbed to his injuries the next day.
In the end, Willem went back to the holiday home to reunite with his wife. We saw a similar scene in iHostage, where the DSI agent who was leaving town with his family returned to them so he could spend some time with his loved ones after witnessing such a terrifying incident. But even though a tragedy was averted and none of the hostages died, the whole situation traumatized everyone present inside and outside the store. They likely wouldn’t be able to erase such a terrifying incident from their memory any time soon and might have to take years of therapy to finally overcome or forget the incident.
