Singapore has hanged a man for a cannabis smuggling plot – despite calls from the United Nations to stop the execution.
Tangaraju Suppiah was hanged at dawn on Wednesday after being found guilty of conspiring to smuggle a kilogram of cannabis into the country from neighboring Malaysia.
Protesters have previously claimed the 46-year-old, who has denied involvement in the plot, was convicted on weak evidence – a claim denied by Singapore authorities.
Relatives and activists had earlier sent letters to Singapore President Halimah Yacob asking for clemency.
His conviction also caught the attention of the UN Human Rights Office, which called on the government to ‘urgent reconsider’, while British entrepreneur Richard Branson called the case ‘shocking’ .
Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), a local group that had also campaigned against Tangaraju Suppiah’s death sentence, said he was hanged in Changi Prison on Wednesday.
The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network condemned the execution as “reprehensible”.
“The Singapore government’s continued use of the death penalty is an act of blatant disregard for international human rights standards and undermines the legitimacy of Singapore’s criminal justice system,” the statement said.
Singapore’s drug laws are among the strictest in the world – those found guilty of trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis could potentially face the death penalty.
Last year, 11 people were executed for drug-related offenses in Singapore.
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Neighboring Malaysia abolished the mandatory death penalty earlier this month.
However, the Singapore government maintains that the death penalty is necessary to protect its citizens and all those executed were given due process under the law.
Authorities also say their strict laws act as a deterrent – and say a study shows traffickers often carry quantities below the threshold that would carry the death penalty.
Although Tangaraju Suppiah was not caught with the cannabis, prosecutors said phone numbers traced him as the person responsible for coordinating the delivery of the drug.
He had maintained that he was not the one communicating with the others connected to the case.
A request for a stay of execution filed on Monday was dismissed without a hearing on Tuesday.
The case drew criticism from British billionaire Richard Branson – a longtime campaigner against the death penalty.
In a blog post shared before the execution, he wrote: “The case of Tangaraju is shocking on many levels.
“Singapore has a long and troubled history of executing drug offenders under mandatory sentencing laws which outlaw the death penalty for certain threshold quantities of drugs.
“The country’s government has repeatedly claimed that its draconian laws are an effective deterrent against drug-related crime.
“However, Singaporean authorities have repeatedly failed to provide hard evidence for this claim.”
