Singapore: Announced hanging of one man for 1 kg of cannabis

Leelavathy Suppiah, sister of Tangaraju Suppiah, who is scheduled to be executed, poses with family members as she holds a letter of clemency in Singapore on April 23, 2023. AFP - ROSLAN RAHMAN

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

A Singaporean man is due to be hanged on Wednesday 26 April for complicity in drug trafficking in a case involving one kilogram of cannabis. This would be the first execution in Singapore in six months and the twelfth since executions resumed in March 2022, after more than two years of interruption.

Advertising

Read more

The hanging of Singaporean Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, is scheduled for Wednesday. He was sentenced to death in 2018 for his involvement in trafficking 1.01 kilograms of cannabis, double the amount punishable by death in Singapore – one of the world's most repressive countries when it comes to drugs.

His family on Sunday appealed to the authorities for clemency and asked for a new trial. "What is really disturbing is that Tangaraju Suppiah never actually touched the drug," said human rights activist Kirsten Han. "He was also questioned by the police without a lawyer and said he was not given access to a Tamil interpreter, his language, during the first hearing."

High Court judge Hoo Sheau Peng said that "the charges against the accused have been proven beyond reasonable doubt."

The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Office on Tuesday called on Singapore to "urgently reconsider" the execution. "We have concerns about due process and respect for fair trial guarantees," the UN human rights office said in a statement, "calling on the authorities not to carry out the execution." The NGO Amnesty International also condemned this decision, Friday, described as "extremely cruel".

If carried out, it would be a violation of international law and a challenge to Singapore's protest movement against the use of the death penalty.

This unlawful execution in Singapore must be halted. pic.twitter.com/DYyV5PUVln

— Amnesty International (@amnesty) April 25, 2023

Eleven convicts executed last year

After a pause of more than two years, Singapore resumed executions by hanging in March 2022. Last year, eleven convicts were executed, all for drug cases. Among those executed, the case of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, sentenced despite a mental disability according to his defenders, had particularly moved international opinion.

>> READ ALSO: In Singapore, the "return to the world before" also applies to the death penalty

In many countries, including neighboring Thailand, cannabis use is no longer a crime. Human rights NGOs are also pressuring Singapore to abolish the death penalty. For the UN Human Rights Office, "the death penalty is still used in a small number of countries, mainly because of the myth that it deters criminals". Singapore, an important Asian financial centre, has one of the toughest anti-drug laws in the world and considers that the death penalty remains an effective deterrent to trafficking.

(With AFP)

Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Read on on the same topics:

• Singapore
• Society