Singapore hangs woman for trafficking 31 grams of heroin

Singapore executed a woman convicted of drug trafficking on Friday despite pleas by human rights organisations to stop the hanging. Saridewi Binte Djamani is believed to be the first woman to have been executed in 20 years for a drug-related conviction in the country.

According to the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB), the 45-year-old woman was given the mandatory death penalty after being found guilty of trafficking around 30 grams of heroin in 2018.

"The capital sentence of death imposed on Saridewi Binte Djamani was carried out on 28 July 2023," said the Central Narcotics Bureau.

She was one of two convicts due to be hanged this week for drug trafficking-related offences. The other convict is a 56-year-old man identified as Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, who was given the death penalty in 2017 for trafficking 50 grams of heroin.

Yen May Woen was the last woman executed in Singapore for drug trafficking. She was a hairdresser and was executed in 2004 for carrying diamorphine (pure heroin). Yen May Woen was arrested with 120 sachets of drugs while boarding a taxi at a car park.

Singapore has some of the harshest drug laws. As many as 25 people have been executed in the city-state between 2016 and 2019 for drug-related offences. A person caught with more than 30 grams of cocaine, 500 grams of cannabis or 200 grams of hashish faces the mandatory death penalty.

Human rights activists and organisations have been urging the government to relax its drug laws for years now, but the authorities believe that these stringent laws act as a deterrent for traffickers.

The city-state had put a two-year hiatus on executions. However, a report by Human Rights Watch revealed that "Singapore authorities emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic and went on an execution spree, putting to death at least 11 people in 2022."

In the last few years, the government has also come down heavily on activists, lawyers, and journalists who have been trying to create awareness around the issue in an attempt to force the government to rethink its harsh drug laws.

"Activists and lawyers faced systematic harassment and even arrest and imprisonment for speaking out against capital punishment and other issues," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

In November last year, a 33-year-old Malaysian national with an intellectual disability was executed for smuggling drugs into the country more than ten years ago. The man, Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, was convicted of drug trafficking in 2010 after he was found in possession of 42.7 grams (1.5 oz) of heroin.

Dharmalingam, who was 21 years old at the time of his arrest, had said that he was forced into carrying the package and that he did not know what it contained.

He was originally scheduled to be hanged in 2021, but the execution was delayed since he still had the right to appeal. He was granted a last-minute appeal wherein his lawyer, Violet Netto, argued that Dharmalingam should not be executed because he is not capable of making informed decisions.

He said that Dharmalingam has an IQ of 69, a level recognised as an "intellectual disability." His lawyer also objected to disclosing his medical records. Netto instead urged the five-judge bench to allow an independent psychiatric review of Dharmalingam's condition. Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon rejected the lawyer's appeal, stating that it was "unreasonable." The man was eventually executed in April 2022.

Dharmalingam's case had attracted international attention, with human rights experts, the United Nations, the European Union, and civil society groups arguing against his execution. But that did not stop the authorities from carrying out the execution.

According to a report on Aljazeera, Singapore is one of only four countries that have carried out drug offence-related executions recently.