Singapore has hanged Mohamed Shalleh Adul Latiff, a 39-year-old man who was convicted of trafficking heroin. It was the country’s third execution in just over a week.
Mohamed Shalleh was sentenced to death for possessing 54g grams (1.9 ounces) of heroin “for the purpose of trafficking” in 2019. His appeal was dismissed last year.
In a statement, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) disclosed that the execution was carried out on Thursday, August 3, 2023, at Singapore’s Changi Prison.
The statement noted that Mohamed Shalleh was executed after being accorded due process under the law. The CNB statement added that the amount of heroin was “sufficient to feed the addiction of about 640 abusers for a week.”
According to court documents, Mohamed Shalleh worked as a delivery driver before his arrest in 2016. During his trial, he claimed to have believed he was delivering contraband cigarettes for a friend to whom he owed money.
Transformative Justice Collective, an anti-death penalty advocate in Singapore, said that he had maintained in his trial that he did not verify the contents of the bag as he trusted his friend.
However, the High Court judge ruled that their ties were not close enough to warrant the kind of trust he claimed to have had for his friend. Although the court found that he was merely a courier, Shalleh was given the mandatory death penalty because prosecutors did not issue him a certificate of having cooperated with them, it said.
Singapore has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws. The laws mandate the death penalty for anyone convicted of trafficking more than 500 grams (17.6 ounces) of cannabis and 15 grams (0.5 ounces) of heroin.
Despite growing international pressure on the issue, Singapore insists that the death penalty is an effective deterrent against drug trafficking.
Human rights groups, international activists and the United Nations have urged Singapore to halt executions for drug offenses, saying that there is increasing evidence that it is ineffective as a deterrent.
Critics claim Singapore’s harsh policy punishes low-level traffickers and couriers, who are typically recruited from marginalized groups with vulnerabilities.
They argue that Singapore is also out of step with the trend of more countries moving away from capital punishment. Thailand has legalized cannabis, while Malaysia halted the mandatory death penalty for serious crimes this year.
Fifth Execution This Year
Mohamed Shalleh was the fifth person to be executed this year. He also became the 16th prisoner put to death since the government resumed executions in March 2022 after a two-year pause during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Activists say the rate at which executions are taking place in the state is accelerated. However, the CNB defends that “Capital punishment is used only for the most serious crimes, such as the trafficking of significant quantities of drugs which cause very serious harm, not just to individual drug abusers, but also to their families and the wider society.”
The execution comes less than a week after two other citizens met same fate. Saridewi Binte Djamani, a 45-year-old Singaporean, was executed on Friday, July 28, 2023 for trafficking around 30g of heroin. The CBN said that the amount was “sufficient to feed the addiction of about 370 abusers for a week.”
Djamani became the first woman to be executed in 19 years for drug trafficking. According to activists, the last woman known to have been hanged in Singapore was 36-year-old hairdresser, Yen May Woen, also for drug trafficking, in 2004.
A man, Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, 57, had been hanged two days prior to Djamani’s execution for trafficking about 50g of heroin.
The Central Narcotics Bureau stated that both prisoners were accorded due process, including appeals of their convictions and sentences and petitions for presidential clemency.
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