A man convicted of his role in the trafficking of cannabis has been executed by hanging in Singapore, despite calls from his family, activists, Richard Branson, and the United Nations to spare his life.
46-year-old Tangaraju Suppiah was hanged at dawn on Wednesday after he was convicted for his part in smuggling one kilogram (35 ounces) of cannabis.
Singapore has notoriously strong laws against drug trafficking, and has repeatedly said that the potential of the death penalty for those involved in the business is a strong deterrent.
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However, those who opposed the execution have suggested that the evidence against Suppiah was not strong and claimed that he had limited legal access during the time between his conviction and sentencing.
The Asian city-state has countered those claims by stating that he was given a fair trial, criticising those who have questioned their actions.
Suppiah – a Singaporean citizen – was convicted for his role in the trafficking of cannabis in 2013 after officials discovered the amount of cannabis, totalling more than double the amount required for the death penalty to be imposed.
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However, Mr Suppiah was not found with the drugs or during the delivery of the drugs, though prosecutors claimed he was responsible for organising the delivery.
They also traced two telephone numbers used by a delivery man back to him.
Kokila Annamalai, an anti-death penalty activist from the country, said that the execution was carried out despite late pleas for clemency to the president.
British billionaire Richard Branson, a long-standing opponent of the death penalty, wrote a piece on the Virgin website entitled ‘Why Tangaraju Suppiah doesn’t deserve to die’ before the sentence was carried out.
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In that piece, he wrote: “Singapore has a long and troubled history of executing drug offenders, following mandatory sentencing laws that proscribe the death penalty for certain threshold amounts of drugs.
“The country’s government has repeatedly claimed that its draconian laws serve as an effective deterrent of drug-related crime.
“However, Singaporean authorities have repeatedly failed to provide any tangible evidence for that assertion.
“Killing those at the lowest rungs of the illicit drug supply chain, often minorities living in poverty, is hardly effective in curbing an international trade worth hundreds of billions every year.”
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He also stated that Singapore ‘may be about to kill an innocent man’, before the Singaporean government called his claims ‘patently untrue’.
The state’s home ministry said: "It is regrettable that Mr. Branson, in wanting to argue his case, should resort to purporting to know more about the case than Singapore's courts.”
They reiterated that the death penalty is an effective deterrent and has support from most of the country’s population.
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The United Nations had also pleaded for the execution to be stopped, asking for the country to ‘adopt a formal moratorium on executions for drug-related offences’.
11 people were executed for drugs offences in Singapore last year.
Topics: World News, Crime, Drugs
Tom Wood