Singapore: 46-year-old Tamil man set to be executed for the crime of ‘abetting smuggling’ of 1 kg cannabis

A Singapore citizen named Tangaraju Suppaiah is about to be hanged on Wednesday, April 26, for the crime of ‘abetting by engaging in a conspiracy to traffic’ 1 kg of cannabis from Malaysia to Singapore. This is the first case of the demise penalty to be carried out after the city-state executed a mentally handicapped man for drug trafficking prices in September 2022.

46-year-old Tangaraju was not caught in the middle of the provision. But the authorities stated that he was liable for coordinating it. Two cellphone numbers utilized by a deliveryman had been traced once more to Tangaraju. Tangaraju had claimed that he had misplaced one cellphone and on no account owned the second amount.

Tangaraju was held accountable by the courtroom docket in 2018 for the 2017 offence. A present enchantment has upheld the preliminary verdict.

His sister Leela Suppaiah has stated that her brother has completed nothing flawed and the courtroom docket must re-examine the case from the beginning. Activists the world over have been saying that Singapore is about to carry Tangaraju on weak grounds, primarily based totally on flimsy proof.

Tangaraju moreover has confronted a language draw back all through his listening to. Activists protesting in opposition to the demise penalty have stated that he was denied appropriate and regular entry to an interpreter and he wanted to argue his last listening to by himself because of his family could not afford a lawyer.

The authorities in Singapore deny these allegations, insisting that Tangaraju had requested an interpreter solely in the middle of the courtroom docket trial and that he was provided approved counsel all by way of the case.

Singapore has one in every of many hardest authorized pointers on this planet in opposition to drug situations.

Activists the world over criticise executions in Singapore

Amnesty International known as the demise penalty and scheduled execution of Tangaraju ‘extremely cruel’. Billionaire Richard Branson, who had moreover criticised the September 2022 execution of mentally disabled Nagaentthran Dharmalingam, stated in a weblog put up that the demise penalty in opposition to Tangaraju is “shocking on multiple levels”.

Singapore hanged 11 people in 2022 alone, all for drug-related offences. Despite a world outcry, the Singapore authorities insists that the demise penalty helps cut back drug trafficking inside the nation.