Singapore yesterday hanged a drug trafficker, the fifth execution in the city-state since March, after a court rejected an appeal and despite pleas for clemency.
The spate of hangings — which included the widely criticised execution of a mentally disabled man in April — has prompted growing calls for Singapore to abolish the death penalty.
However, the city-state, which has some of the world’s toughest drugs trafficking laws, has said it remains an effective deterrent.
Nazeri Lajim was executed in prison yesterday, the Singapore Prison Service said in a statement.
The 64-year-old in 2017 was convicted of possessing more than 33 grams of heroin “for the purpose of trafficking,” the Singaporean Central Narcotics Bureau said.
Amnesty International urged an end to Singapore’s “relentless wave of hangings.”
“Rather than having a unique deterrent effect on crime, these executions only show the utter disregard the Singaporean authorities have for human rights and the right to life,” said Chiara Sangorgio, a death penalty researcher at the group.
An appeals court on Thursday rejected a last-gasp plea, in which Nazeri appeared via video link, to stay the execution.
Prominent local rights campaigner Kirsten Han (韓俐穎) said that Nazeri had spent most of his life struggling with drug dependency, starting from the age of 14.
“If we really cared about the well-being of people who use drugs, we would have given Nazeri and others like him meaningful support and space for recovery,” Han said. “Instead, he was punished with incarceration over and over again throughout his life.”
After a hiatus of more than two years, the city-state resumed executions in March.
The UN has said that globally the death penalty has not proved to be an effective deterrent, and is incompatible with international human rights law, which only permits capital punishment for the most serious crimes.
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