Black Cobra Still Gets An Outstanding Bill From Justice After 20 Years

He was a prominent member of the polder penoze Henk Orlando Rommy, alias De Zwarte Cobra, rose in the eighties and nineties to become one of the leading figures of the Dutch drug world.

After a cunning trick by the American narcotics brigade DEA, the curtain fell Rommy was serving a prison sentence of twenty years in the US, but will have to fight again with the judiciary from Monday, this time in Amsterdam.

The public prosecutor suspects him of a double murder in 1993 in Antwerp It could be the script of a classic gangster movie.

A flamboyant drug lord actually wants to get out of the underworld, but is persuaded by a 'good friend' - in reality a police informant - to have a few more conversations with an american ecstasy dealer That meeting becomes fatal for the main character.

It's one big US police setup That film scenario actually happened to Henk Rommy more than twenty years ago, just before he thought he would retire.

Black Cobra The Black Cobra, once risen from petty criminal to one of the hash kings of the Netherlands, paid a heavy price for the trust in his friend, who thus played a double game An American undercover agent lured Rommy to the Bermuda Islands and later to Spain with a trick, where he was captured á la Transavia pilot Julio Poch and extradited to the US.

After serving a sentence of twenty years, the judiciary now presents him with another outstanding bill Henk Rommy was appointed in the Passage process against a number of hitmen as the client of two liquidations.

The 1993 case revolves around the murder of diamond merchant and drug trafficker Henie Shamel and his girlfriend Anne de Witte Both were shot at by two gunmen in Antwerp on the night of 8 to 9 May 1993, while they were sitting in the car in front of Shamel's house.

The pair died of their injuries a few days later Witnesses from the criminal environment told the detective at the time that 'a long-running conflict' between Shamel and Henk Rommy, around an intercepted transport of hashish, was the basis of the double murder.

Crown witness Peter La Serpe also added a motive: Rommy would still be in debt to Shamel and liquidating was cheaper than paying The criminal case against the now 71-year-old Rommy is a prestige issue for the Public Prosecution Service.

The trial that starts on Monday must show that a murder never expires and that murderers and clients do not get away with impunity The stakes are high The stakes are high for Rommy.

A guilty verdict leads to a long prison sentence, which means that the now elderly Black Cobra remains behind bars until the end of his life According to his criminal lawyer Mark Teurlings, it is still a long way off.

In fact, the lawyer has been working for weeks on a plea that fully acquits his client of the double murder He also believes that the Public Prosecution Service has lost the right to prosecute his client.

"Rommy has been suspected for thirty years and that is an unreasonably long period for a prosecution," says Teurlings “In addition, the Netherlands helped the Americans with a prohibited operation with provocation and ensured that Henk could not attend the Passage process when all witnesses were still alive,” says Teurlings, who also accuses the judiciary of tunnel vision: “Documents have been kept from the file and not researched.

Immediately after the murder, Interpol appointed another person as the client ” Rommy's lawyer is referring to the notorious, now deceased hash dealer Stanley Kai Esser: “A file requested by me shows that Esser had put a price on Shamel's head because he had shot his eye out and he was threatened.

In 2007, Esser testified that he had previously tried to kill Shamel in Lebanon, but that attack failed ” According to Teurlings, on the day of this murder, Shamel told his friend Viola that he had an appointment that night to get money from the man he has already shot once.

“Henk was never shot, Esser was, by Shamel Friends of Shamel stated that there is a lot of contact with Carlos just before the murder and that is the nickname Esser.

The scenario that Esser was the client has never been investigated,” says Rommy's lawyer La Serpe Where the Public Prosecution Service screens with the statement of crown witness Peter La Serpe conjures up Teurling's assassin jesse remmers as a trump card.

“Jesse Remmers, himself sentenced to life imprisonment for this murder, among other things, was heard in September and stated that Esser was the client He already brought that up in 2017, but that text was also not included in the documents.

” Whatever the verdict will be, it is also the provisional conclusion of an explosive chapter in Dutch crime history Rommy did not have to stay in jail in the run-up to his trial and will therefore walk into the courthouse as a free man on Monday.

Whether he will also leave the court in freedom is hardly predictable A cobra sometimes manages to get away through the smallest hole.

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