Singapore: Three executions for drug possession in one week – including a woman

Singapore has executed a 39-year-old man convicted of trafficking heroin. According to authorities, this was the fifth execution this year and the third in just over a week.

His sentence was carried out Thursday, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said in a statement. Mohamed Shalleh Adul Latiff was sentenced to death for possessing around 55 grams of heroin “for the purpose of trafficking” in 2019.

According to court documents, Mohamed Shalleh worked as a delivery driver before his arrest in 2016. During his trial, he stated that he believed he was delivering smuggled cigarettes for a friend to whom he owed money.

He was the 16th prisoner sent to the gallows since the government resumed executions in March 2022 after pausing them for two years during the Covid 19 pandemic.

The execution came less than a week after Singapore executed a woman for drug trafficking for the first time in nearly 20 years, despite condemnation from human rights groups.

Saridewi Binte Djamani, a 45-year-old Singaporean woman, was executed Friday for trafficking about 30 grams of heroin.

A local man, Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, 57, had been hanged two days earlier for trafficking about 50 grams of heroin.

The United Nations last week condemned the executions and called on Singapore to impose a moratorium on the death penalty.

Despite growing international pressure on the issue, Singapore insists the death penalty is an effective deterrent to drug trafficking.

The wealthy financial center has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws – trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis or more than 15 grams of heroin can carry the death penalty.

Source: https://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2023/08/singapore-carries-out-its-fifth.html