Singapore hangs a fifth person in four months

Singapore has hanged its fifth person in the past four months. Malaysian 64 year old Nazeri bin Lajim was hanged at 6am at Changi Prison. He was sentenced to death in 2017, five years after he was arrested with two bundles containing heroin.

It is understood that his family members were at the prison to claim his body and make funeral arrangements.

Anti-death penalty activist Kokila Annamalai, who was with the family at the prison today, said funeral prayers would be held at Masjid Assyakirin in Taman Jurong, Malaysia.

His remains will then be taken to the Muslim cemetery at Masjid Al-Firdaus.

Nazeri was one of 17 death row inmates who had filed a historic suit in 2021 against the Singapore government. The suits accuse Singapore of “discrimination and bias in their prosecution due to their Malay ethnicity.”

The suit was dismissed at the end of 2021 with the court calling it an abuse of process.

Just two days ago, Singapore’s High Court rejected Nazeri’s application to commute his death sentence in order “to pursue a judicial review about his constitutional rights to equal treatment.”

Nazeri begged for compassion in a final court hearing yesterday, asking for more time to see his family members and siblings.

But the judge said, “the decision of the court was final.”

Amnesty International’s death penalty expert Chiara Sangorgio says that Singapore’s “relentless wave of hangings must stop immediately.”

“The use of the death penalty in Singapore, including as mandatory punishment for drug-related offences, violates international human rights law and standards.

“Everyone executed in Singapore in 2022 has been sentenced to the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offenses. 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.

“We call on governments, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and the International Narcotics Control Board to increase pressure on Singapore so that international safeguards on the death penalty are respected and drug control policies are rooted in the promotion and protection of human rights. Singapore’s highly punitive approach does neither.”

Singapore has carried out five executions this year, all of the people convicted of drug offences, after a pause of over two years during the pandemic.

SOURCES: Malaysia NOW | Amnesty International