Johannes van Damme

Johannes van Damme was hanged at Changi Prison on the morning of 23 September 1994. His family later released a copy of the telegram that they received from Singapore prison officials:

That same year, Mat Repin was also executed by hanging on 13 May 1994, for having smuggled 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of cannabis from Malaysia.

On 8 April 1993, the opening statement of Deputy Public Prosecutor Ismail Hamid described how officers, acting on information received, had kept Van Damme under surveillance after he arrived from Thailand that afternoon. He was trailed from the airport's interline transfer counter to the transit lounge, where he was then intercepted. Narcotics officers subsequently removed the lining of his suitcase and discovered two plastic bags containing a whiteish substance, which was later determined to be heroin. Both plastic bags were smeared with a dark paste that smelled of coffee.

On 20 April 1993, Justice S. Rajendran ruled Obiefuna had no case to answer and acquitted him of all charges, citing lack of evidence to warrant a conviction. According to the prosecution, Central Narcotics Bureau officers originally had Obiefuna under surveillance for a number of months, as they suspected him of traveling to Singapore to recruit drug couriers on behalf of an international narcotics syndicate and subsequently observed him talking to Van Damme for about 5 minutes outside his Oxley Garden apartment on 20 September 1991. Apart from this, a piece of paper sized from Van Damme with a name and telephone number written on it, allegedly by Obiefuna, was submitted as evidence. However a Department of Scientific Services officer testified there was insufficient similarities between it and samples of Obiefuna's handwriting for a positive identification to be made.

On 21 April 1993, Van Damme was questioned by Deputy Public Prosecutor Ismail Hamid about trips he made between July 1991 and September 1991. He traveled from Singapore to Bangkok then Vienna via Singapore onto Zurich between 17 July and 11 August, then on 21 August he returned to Singapore before repeating the Bangkok to Zurich via Singapore trip again. Despite claiming he visited Singapore to source suppliers for a proposed communication center in Lagos, meet fabric wholesalers in Bangkok, and went to Vienna to shop for lace for his daughters wedding dress, Van Damme could not produce any documentary evidence to support his claims. The pattern of his travels were used to help back up the prosecutions assertions that Van Damme was in fact a drug mule who was fully aware of the contents of the suitcase seized at Changi Airport, and had agreed to carry the heroin from Bangkok to Athens via Singapore for a payment of US$20,000

On 26 April 1993, Van Damme was found guilty as charged and sentenced to death for importing 4.32 kilograms of heroin into Singapore, contrary to Section 7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. Justice S. Rajendran told Van Damme in his oral judgement "I have no doubt in my mind that you knew that there was a controlled drug concealed in the bag". The judge found many parts of Van Damme's testimony "quite unsatisfactory", such as:

On 23 November 1993, the Court of Criminal Appeal rejected Van Damme's appeal against his conviction, ruling the trial judge was correct in rejecting his defence that he was tricked by Obiefuna into carrying the heroin into Singapore in the false bottom of a suitcase. On 6 May 1994, Van Damme petitioned President Ong Teng Cheong for clemency. Acting on the advice of the Cabinet, the President turned down the petition on 7 July 1994.

Van Damme was arrested on the afternoon of 27 September 1991 in the transit lounge of Singapore Changi Airport, after arriving from Phuket and awaiting on a connecting flight to Athens in the evening. Alerted by a police sniffer dog, narcotics officers had found 4.32 kilograms (9.5 lb) of heroin in a secret compartment of a suitcase belonging to him in the baggage area. On 12 October 1991, Nigerian engineer John U Obiefuna was arrested at his Oxley Garden apartment in connection with the heroin Van Damme was caught with. He was later charged with abetting Van Damme to import the heroin and was scheduled to face joint trial with him.

During the trial, Van Damme claimed he first met Obiefuna in a Singapore hotel in July 1991 and again in September 1991. At this second meeting Van Damme mentioned he was going to Bangkok to met fabric wholesalers. Obiefuna asked him to pick up a suitcase containing dresses while there, and bring them to Athens where someone would collect it on his behalf. When Van Damme collected the suitcase it was empty, so he emptied the contents of his suitcase into it as he wanted it for his own use. He only realized it contained drugs after officers forced it open in the Central Narcotics Bureau office in Changi Airport and showed him the two packets of heroin concealed in the false bottom of the suitcase.

Van Damme also challenged the admissibility of a statement he gave to Central Narcotics Bureau Inspector William Chew Khai Chow over 5 days between 20 September 1991 and 25 October 1991, where he said he knew about the drugs in the suitcase and that he would be paid US$20,000 to bring them to Athens. Van Damme claimed he was told that the officers were not interested in him but in the syndicate the drugs belonged to, and that he hoped he "could go home after I helped them with the statement". Van Damme testified that the US$20,000 he was to be paid in Athens was offered by Obiefuna because he wanted to be on the board of directors of a company he was going to set up in Holland. On 19 April 1993, Justice S. Rajendran ruled Van Damme's version of events regarding the recording of his original statement was probable and this would have amounted to inducement, thereby rendering the entire statement recorded by the Central Narcotics Bureau inadmissible.

In 1990, Van Damme was arrested in Haarlem, The Netherlands for the possession of 10 kg of marijuana. On 14 February 1991, he was sentenced in absentia to ten weeks in jail, however he did not serve any time in prison as he was in Nigeria when the judgement was handed down.

Born in The Netherlands, Van Damme had been a resident of Nigeria since 1976 and was married to a Nigerian woman at the time of his arrest.

Johannes van Damme (1 June 1935 – 23 September 1994) was a Dutch engineer and businessman executed in Singapore for drug trafficking. He was the first European to be executed in Singapore since its independence.

Death sentence passed on Johannes Van Damme will be carried into effect on 23.9.94. Visit him on 20.9.94. Claim body on 23.9.94. Signed Superintendent, Changi Prison, Singapore.