KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A Singaporean man is scheduled to be hanged next week for trying to smuggle cannabis into the island state, in a resumption of executions after a half-year hiatus, activists said on Thursday.
The family of Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, was notified in a letter that he would be executed next Wednesday, anti-death penalty activist Kokila Annamalai said.
Tangaraju was arrested in 2014 for drug use and failure to submit to a drug test, according to another activist, Kirsten Han. He was later linked to two drug traffickers through a phone number used to coordinate the delivery of cannabis. The High Court found Tangaraju guilty of conspiring to traffic 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cannabis and sentenced him to mandatory death in 2018, Han said.
“The last execution carried out in Singapore was in October 2022. Death row prisoners, their families and abolitionists have been holding our breath for the past six months, terrified of when the killing will begin again. We will fight for Tangaraju till the end,” said Annamalai.
Singapore, which has tough drug laws, executed 11 people last year for drug offences. The hanging of one particular Malaysian caused an international outcry because she was believed to be mentally disabled. It brought the country’s capital punishment under deeper scrutiny, with human rights groups criticizing it as a flagrant violation of international human rights standards.
Both activists said Tangaraju was denied access to justice because he was questioned without a lawyer. Tangaraju also never handled the drugs he was accused of conspiring to traffic, they said. He had to represent himself in his appeal, which was rejected by the high court on February 26 because Tangaraju failed to prove a miscarriage of justice, they said.
Annamalai said Tangaraju’s family is appealing to the public to protest his execution.
“The idea that a man could soon be hanged for attempting to traffic 1 kilo of cannabis, a plant-based substance that is being decriminalized or legalized in a growing number of jurisdictions, is in itself outrageous in the most horrible. way,” Han said.
Critics say Singapore’s death penalty has mostly caught low-level mules and done little to stop drug traffickers and organized syndicates. But Singapore’s government defends it as necessary to protect its citizens and says all those executed have been given full due process under the law.
Han said Singapore’s tough criminalization would only drive drug trafficking underground and prevent people from accessing health or harm reduction services that could help address the root causes of drug use.
“Harsh and uncompromising measures such as the death penalty have not been shown to have a deterrent effect. Not a single drug user is helped or supported by the hanging of another, probably from a marginalized or marginalized community. It is especially pointless, pointless and heartless when it comes to a case as problematic as Tangaraju’s.” she added.
