Man is executed in Singapore for trafficking 2 pounds of marijuana, despite international claim
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Tangaraju Suppiah was convicted of attempting to traffic around 2.2 pounds of cannabis, a sentence criticized by rights groups and activists for its severity at one point in which many other nations have changed these types of policies
Singapore hanged Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, who was convicted in 2018 of trafficking 2.2 pounds of marijuana, despite last-minute pleas for clemency from his family and activists.
According to Authorities, a judge found that he was using a phone number that communicated with dealers trying to smuggle drugs into Singapore.
However, Tangaraju's family and activists had argued that the 46-year-old man years he was not provided with proper legal advice and was denied access to an interpreter while police questioned him.
Singapore executes man for supplying cannabis https://t.co/ocCQpRCGiD
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 26, 2023
Human rights organizations called “scandalous and unacceptable”
Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch (HRW), called the execution “shocking and unacceptable” and showed his concern for what he classifies as “a renewed wave to empty death row” of Singapore.
"Singapore's continued use of the death penalty for drug possession is an outrage against human rights that causes much of the world to recoil and question whether the image of the Modern, civilized Singapore is just a mirage," Robertson remarked.
For his part, the deputy regional director of Amnesty International (AI), Ming Yu Hah, said in a statement that “this execution once again shows the utter failure of the obstinate adoption of the death penalty by part of Singapore”.
Tangaraju's case has attracted attention not only for being a crime of attempted trafficking of marijuana, whose medicinal use is legalized in more and more countries, including Thailand, but also because of the alleged irregularities in the process, denounced by their relatives and NGOs.
Tangaraju and his lawyers affirm that he never saw or touched the drugs and that he was implicated by third parties for some telephone exchanges whose content was also not presented at trial, in which he was sentenced to death for being an accomplice in a conspiracy to traffic ” marijuana from Malaysia to Singapore in 2013.
Singapore has one of the toughest drug laws in the world and provides for the death penalty for a minimum of 500 grams of marijuana trafficking.
In 2022, after two years without hangings due to the COVID pandemic, he executed 11 traffickers, including a prisoner with intellectual disabilities, despite UN criticism.