The Public Prosecution Service (OM) has been sentenced to 22 years in prison in the Amsterdam court on Tuesday demanded against Henk R., also known as the ‘Black Cobra’. The now 71-year-old R. is suspected of having ordered the murder of Henie Shamel, a drug and diamond trafficker from Antwerp, and his girlfriend in 1993. R. was only returned to the Netherlands in 2021 after serving a prison sentence of seventeen years in the United States.
On May 9, 1993, Shamel and his girlfriend Anne de Witte were shot at in Antwerp while sitting in a parked car. The two died a few days after the attack. The Public Prosecution Service suspects R. of having ordered the murder. Due to a failed drug deal, R. owed Shamel millions. Instead of repaying the debt, he would have ordered Shamel’s murder, according to the OM. Shamel’s girlfriend, who was probably not a target, was also killed in the assassination attempt. According to the prosecutors, the two “didn’t stand a chance against the gun violence”. The shooter and two intermediaries were previously convicted.
R. has probably been active as a drug trafficker since the 1990s, both within the Netherlands and internationally. He was imprisoned several times for drug trafficking, including for smuggling hashish from Morocco. According to the Public Prosecution Service, it does not matter that the murder in Antwerp was committed 33 years ago. The facts are so serious that “this persecution is also appropriate so many years after the facts.” Because R. was previously detained in the US, prosecution was not possible until now. The OM does say that it took into account the health situation of the 71-year-old ‘Black Cobra’ when determining the sentence.
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