Singapore hangs Indian-origin man over smuggling of 1 kg of cannabis
By India Today World Desk: A 46-year-old Indian-origin man, convicted of a conspiracy to smuggle one kilogram of cannabis, was hanged in Singapore’s Changi Prison Complex on Wednesday, in response to authorities.
The hanging occurred amid widespread calls by worldwide organisations, along with the United Nations Human Rights Office, asking the Singaporean authorities to “urgently reconsider” the execution.
“Singaporean Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, had his capital sentence carried out today at Changi Prison Complex,” a spokesperson for the Singapore Prisons Service instructed AFP.
In 2017, Tangaraju was convicted of “abetting by engaging in a conspiracy to traffic” 1,017.9 grams of cannabis, which is double the minimal amount needed for a lack of life sentence in Singapore. He was given a lack of life sentence in 2018, a name which was moreover upheld by the Court of Appeal.
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On Monday, British billionaire Richard Branson, a member of the Geneva-based Global Commission on Drug Policy, wrote in his weblog that Tangaraju was “not anywhere near” the medicine when he was being arrested. He asserted that an innocent man could also be killed.
The convict’s family has appealed for clemency and pushed for a retrial.
On Tuesday, Singapore’s residence affairs ministry talked about, “Tangaraju’s guilt had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt”, in response to AFP.
Two mobile phone numbers, which the prosecutors alleged belonged to him, have been used to coordinate the provision of the narcotics, in response to the ministry.
Singapore has various the world’s strictest anti-drug authorized pointers. The city-state authorities asserts that the lack of life penalty acts as an environment friendly deterrent in opposition to drug trafficking.
However, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCR) disputed the Singaporean authorities’s argument.
“The death penalty is still being used in a small number of countries, largely because of the myth that it deters crime,” the OHCHR talked about in a press launch on Tuesday.
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Tangaraju’s hanging was the first in six months and twelfth normal since Singapore resumed executions in March 2022 after a distinct segment of over two years.
Singapore’s neighbouring nation, Thailand, has already abolished capital punishment for drug smuggling and stress has been mounting on Singapore to adjust to go effectively with.
