Tangaraju s/o Suppiah, 46, was hanged at dawn on 26 April 2023 at Changi Prison despite clemency pleas from his family, activists and the United Nations.[1][2] The Central Narcotics Bureau had scheduled the capital sentence for that date after he was convicted of abetting the trafficking of 1,017.9 grams of cannabis, more than twice the 500-gram threshold for a mandatory death sentence.[3]
Conspiracy without the drugs
In September 2013 he was not found with the cannabis or during the delivery.[1] The High Court found that he had abetted a courier, Mogan Valo, by conspiracy to deliver 1,017.9 grams to him, including by using two phone numbers linked to the delivery.[4] He denied owning one of the phones and said he had lost the other.[1] The judge concluded he was not a mere courier eligible for the alternative life sentence, and prosecutors did not certify substantive assistance against trafficking networks.[4]
Appeals and protests
He was sentenced to death on 9 October 2018 and the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on 14 August 2019.[3] A petition to the president failed, and a last-minute review application was dismissed on 25 April 2023.[1][3] His relatives collected his body outside the prison after the hanging.[1] Singapore authorities said he had had a fair trial with legal counsel throughout.[1][3]
Singapore’s anti-drug policy makes capital punishment almost mandatory above certain thresholds, 500 grams for cannabis and 15 grams for heroin, and judges cannot impose lighter sentences.[2] Eleven people were hanged in Singapore in 2022, all for drug-related offences, after two years with no executions.[2] In a statement from Bangkok on 26 April, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director Phil Robertson accused Singapore of being “completely out of step” with basic concepts of human rights, proportionality in criminal punishments and justice.[2]