james 
Singapore Hangs Man Over 1 Kg Of Cannabis
Singapore on Wednesday hanged a prisoner convicted of conspiracy to smuggle one kilogram of hashish, government stated, ignoring worldwide requires the city-kingdom to abolish capital punishment. The execution occurred notwithstanding a plea with the aid of using the United Nations Human Rights Office for Singapore to “urgently reconsider” the placing and calls with the aid of using British magnate Richard Branson to halt it.
“Singaporean Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, had his capital sentence executed these days at Changi Prison Complex,” a spokesman for the Singapore Prisons Service instructed AFP. Tangaraju turned into convicted in 2017 of “abetting with the aid of using undertaking a conspiracy to traffic” 1,017.nine grams (35.nine ounces) of hashish, two times the minimal quantity required for a dying sentence in Singapore.
He turned into sentenced to dying in 2018 and the Court of Appeal upheld the decision. Branson, a member of the Geneva-primarily based totally Global Commission on Drug Policy, wrote Monday on his weblog that Tangaraju turned into “now no longer everywhere near” the medicine on the time of his arrest and that Singapore can be approximately to position an harmless guy to dying.
Singapore`s Home Affairs Ministry replied Tuesday that Tangaraju’s guilt have been established past an inexpensive doubt. The ministry stated cellular telecellsmartphone numbers that prosecutors stated belonged to him have been used to coordinate the transport of the medicine.
In many elements of the world — together with neighbouring Thailand — hashish has been decriminalised, with government leaving behind jail sentences, and rights companies had been heaping stress on Singapore to abolish capital punishment.
The Asian economic hub has a number of the world’s hardest anti-narcotics legal guidelines and insists the dying penalty stays an powerful deterrent in opposition to trafficking. But the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights disagrees.
“The dying penalty remains being utilized in a small quantity of countries, in large part due to the parable that it deters crime,” the OHCHR stated in a assertion Tuesday. Tangaraju’s own circle of relatives pleaded for clemency whilst additionally pushing for a retrial.
Wednesday’s execution turned into the primary in six months and twelfth considering that remaining yr withinside the city-kingdom. Singapore resumed executions in March 2022 after a hiatus of greater than years.
Among the ones hanged turned into Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, whose execution sparked a international outcry, together with from the United Nations and Branson, due to the fact he turned into deemed to have a intellectual disability.
The United Nations says the dying penalty has now no longer established to be an powerful deterrent globally and is incompatible with worldwide human rights law, which handiest allows capital punishment for the maximum severe crimes.
