Crime & Justice

Singapore executes second prisoner in 3 weeks for drug trafficking

Singapore, May 17 (EFE).- Singapore on Wednesday executed a prisoner convicted of trafficking 1.5 kilograms of marijuana, three weeks after hanging another man for attempting to traffic 1 kilogram of cannabis.

The execution of the prisoner, a 37-year-old Singaporean of Malay ethnicity, occurred at the Changi Prison, according to the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), a local nonprofit that advocates for the abolition of the death penalty.

The prisoner’s family members have preferred not to reveal his identity or contact the media after being notified by the authorities a week before the hanging – the method employed by Singapore – the usual protocol in such cases.

A request to reopen the case on the eve of the execution on grounds that the DNA and fingerprint evidence linked the inmate to a stash of less than 1.5 kilograms was dismissed by the courts.

Singapore has some of the world’s most draconian laws against drug use and trafficking, with smuggling of 500 grams or above of marijuana being punishable by death.

The execution comes just three weeks after the city-state carried out its first execution of the year, that of a 46-year-old Tamil origin man, Tangaraju Suppiah, on Apr. 26.

His execution was slammed by human rights organizations while the UN had asked Singapore to halt it due to “concerns about due process and respect for fair trial guarantees” since the man’s lawyers and family members affirmed that he had never touched or seen the drug that he had been accused of conspiring to traffic. EFE

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