Singapore Holds First Executions in Over Three Years

Singapore recently hanged two men convicted of drug trafficking. They were the first executions carried out in the country for more than three years.

Singapore put a stop to all executions in July 2011 while it reviewed its use of the mandatory death penalty and now allows judges to have more discretion in certain cases.

According to Amnesty, Singapore had one of the highest per capita execution rates in the world.

A British author Alan Shadrake was jailed after he wrote a book criticising the country’s use of the death penalty and its judicial system.

He first made headlines in 2005 with a rare interview with a retired hangman in Singapore who described openly how he hanged death row inmates.

“I’ve cited a lot of really dreadful cases of injustice where young people have been hanged and they should not have been”

One of the cases concerns Vignes Mourthy, a 23-year-old Malaysian who was hanged in 2003 for trafficking under 30 grams of heroin into Singapore.

Alan says most of the evidence used to convict him was from a corrupt police officer who was also under investigation at the time.

“He was being investigated simultaneously for raping and sodomising a woman whom he had handcuffed in a friend’s flat. This must have been known while the trial went on. This boy was hanged. Two years later, the police officer was charged with corruption - when the woman filed charges against him for rape, he tried to bribe her. He was jailed for 15 months. Now I have an interview with a top lawyer - it’s on tape, saying that if the police officer had been tried first, they could not have possibly found Vignes Mourthy guilty of drug trafficking”

Following the release of the book Vignes Mourthy’s family is demanding the Singaporean government admit they wrongfully killed their son.

N. Surendran is a member of the Lawyers for Liberty.

“We’re taking up the cause of the family, who had a son who was unlawfully and wrongfully executed. We’re taking up the cause of Alan Shadrake, because he’s being persecuted by Singapore. And what he did was a good thing. He exposed the horrors that had been happening there. And he exposed the terrible miscarriage of justice which involved a Malaysian citizen.”

While it is too late to get Vignes Mourthy back, activists and human rights lawyers are fighting to save another young Malaysian heroin smuggler on death row.

Vui Kong was 19 years old when he was arrested in Singapore for possessing 47 grams of heroin, more than twice the maximum amount that warrants the mandatory death penalty.

Lawyers for Liberty’s Latheefa Khoya says while the Malaysian government has sent Singapore an appeal for clemency for Vui Kong, it is not enough.

“A poor guy from Sabah, he has no voice, and he has no political value, and because of that, we don’t see any aggressive action coming from the politicians or the government to see whether we can save another Malaysian life. We have lost one, but it is not too late to save another.”

A campaign to save him is also taking place in Singapore. Over one hundred and fifty Singaporeans gather at the Speakers’ Corner in the rain. They are here to support Yong Vui Kong a convicted Malaysian drug trafficker now facing execution.

Human rights lawyer M Ravi is representing him.

“Yong Vui Kong is such a gentle soul. Not only has he taken up a Buddhist path and has reformed but you know the last time we had a day of compassion for Vui Kong, 40 people turned up. I showed Vui Kong the picture of the people who turned up. He gazed at the picture for twenty minutes. You know the sad fact in Singapore is that in the last ten years, since the current President has come into power, and we now know that he does not have the power, it is sad that the Cabinet did not deem it fit to allow clemency for any of those people hanged in the last ten years. How many hundreds of people have been hanged in the last ten years?”

Law Minister K Shanmugam said earlier this year that saving Vui Kong would send drug barons the wrong signal.

He said it would tell drug barons to choose a victim who is young or the mother of a young child and get them to carry drugs into Singapore.

B/A: Since Monica filed that report form our Asia Calling archives Yong Vui Kong become the first drug trafficker on death row in Singapore to have his sentence reduced to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane, under amendments made to the Misuse of Drugs act.

Yong’s lawyer, Mr M Ravi, said in a media statement, “This is the happiest day of my client’s life. Yong has seen the error of his ways and has repented. He is happy to have his life back again.”