SINGAPORE, Friday.
A 59-YEAR-old Dutchman was hanged at Singapore's Changi prison this
morning, a Dutch embassy spokeswoman said.
Johannes van Damme was the first Westerner executed by the city-state
for violating its tough anti-drug laws. Van Damme, convicted of heroin
trafficking, went to the gallows after last-ditch legal and diplomatic
appeals to win a stay were rejected by Singapore authorities.
Singapore prisons officials had informed the embassy of the execution,
aide D J. Koekkoek said.
Van Damme was hanged in the pre-dawn hours here. Reporters outside the
prison described the scene as quiet on a windless morning marked by a
smoky haze.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry announced hours earlier that Singapore
authorities had rejected a last-ditch legal appeal by van Damme's
lawyers, and then a final diplomatic appeal for clemency.
The Dutch engineer was arrested at Singapore airport in September
1991, with 4.32 kg of heroin in his suitcase. Drug trafficking is a
capital offence in Singapore.
In The Hague the Dutch Government said it felt horror and
disappointment at the hanging.
''The Government feels horror and disappointment that we did not
succeed in preventing the execution of the death sentence,'' Foreign
Minister Hans van Mierlo told Dutch television.
Van Mierlo said the Government in The Hague had done everything in its
power to stop the execution. ''I do not think there is anything we could
have done to prevent this,'' he said.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry confirmed earlier this week that Van Damme
gave information on a Nigerian oil fraud racket to Dutch police
intelligence. It said it was possible the Nigerian gang found out about
his informant activities and set him up.
A legal plea for clemency in July and a letter from Queen Beatrix of
the Netherlands to Singapore President Ong Teong Cheong were both
rejected.
Dutch social worker Guus van Bladel accompanied the engineer's
Nigerian wife, Eliana, on two visits to the prison.
Van Damme's wife was reunited with her husband on Wednesday for the
first time in several years.--Reuter
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