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By India Today World Desk: A Singaporean man is scheduled to be hanged next week for abetting an attempt to smuggle cannabis into the island-state. Singapore has resumed executions after a 6-month break, activists told news agency AP. This will be the first instance of capital punishment carried out this year.
The authorities in Singapore will execute a man for his involvement in trafficking 1kg of cannabis but his family claims he has never even touched it, The Independent said in a report.
The family of Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, was notified in a letter that he would be executed next Wednesday, anti-death penalty activist Kokila Annamalai told AP.
Another activist, Kirsten Han, told AP that Tangaraju Suppiah was detained in 2014 for drug consumption and failure to report for a drug test. He was later linked to two drug traffickers through a phone number used to coordinate the delivery of cannabis, the activist said.
In 2018, Tangaraju Suppiah was found guilty by the high court of conspiring to traffic 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cannabis and sentenced him to mandatory death.
Known for strict enforcement of laws, Singapore has faced growing calls to ban the death penalty. Last year, dozens of protesters took to the streets against capital punishment when the government resumed the practice after the Covid pandemic.
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Kokila Annamalai told AP, “The last execution carried out in Singapore was in October 2022. Death row prisoners, their family members and abolitionists have been holding our breath for the past six months, terrified of when the killing spree will begin again. We will fight for Tangaraju till the end.”
According to activists, access to justice for Tangaraju was denied 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 top court on February 26 on the grounds that Tangaraju failed to show 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 might soon be hanged for abetting an attempt to traffic 1 kilo of cannabis — a plant-based substance that’s being decriminalized or legalized in a growing number of jurisdictions — is, in and of itself, outrageous in the most horrifying way,” activist Kirsten Han said.
(With AP inputs)
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