Once a Jolly Hangman (21 page)

Rozman Jusoh, a 24-year-old labourer from Malaysia, was arrested after trying to sell 1.04 kilograms of cannabis to an undercover officer of the Central Narcotics Bureau, enough to hang him. But in March 1995, Rozman was acquitted of the capital offence of drug trafficking after the trial judge found him to have 'sub-normal intelligence, with an IQ of 74'. Instead of sentencing him to death, the judge found young Rozman guilty of the lesser offence of drug possession and jailed him for a 20-year term. His lawyer had suggested that the undercover agent might have 'encouraged' him to sell the cannabis to him thus attracting more serious punishment as a trafficker. However, not to be outdone the DPP filed an appeal, whereupon the appeal judge sentenced him to death, stating: 'He was educationally sub-normal but that does not absolve him from his criminal deeds'. Singapore newspapers rarely take an interest in such cases. But, perhaps prompted by Amnesty International, a government-controlled tabloid, The New Paper,
actually interviewed his mother who said, 'When someone's talking to him, he would merely smile or look at you blankly. I don't know how he ever made it through to grade 3 in secondary school'. She said that the family had planned to enrol him in religious classes and steer him back to the 'right path' once he was released from prison. Rozman was hanged at dawn one Friday morning in April 1996. It was this kind of biased treatment of many who fall foul of the machinations of Singapore law that so angered the former CNB officer who assisted in some of my enquiries. 'Encouraging the less fortunate to commit more serious crimes that result in them being hanged or jail for impossibly long terms really appalled me', he said during an interview given in the strictest of confidence.

Three days before Christmas, in December 2001, an Indian migrant worker, Arunprakash Vaithilingam got involved in a drunken fight with a flat mate who died from a single stab wound. Vaithilingam was sentenced to death for murder despite evidence that not only was there was no intention to kill his friend, Lourdusamy Lenin Salvanayagan, but that he made every effort to get immediate hospital treatment. Both men had come from Tiruvarur in India's Tamil Nadu state to work as labourers in Singapore. Petitions poured in from the young man's parents, the Tamil Nadu state government and international human rights organisations including Amnesty International. But all efforts to save his life were rejected. The court heard that Vaithilingam stabbed Salvanayagan with a knife during the argument during the early hours of 22 December 2001. He was taken to a hospital where he died the next day. Vaithilingam was said to have panicked and ran away. He was arrested at a checkpoint on 18 March 2002 and charged with murder. On 9 December 2003, after a five day trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Flis appeal against the conviction was dismissed. Civil rights groups in India and the young man's parents also petitioned Singapore President S.R. Nathan to grant clemency. According to a report in the Indian newspaper The Hindu, the Indian government has also intervened on his behalf,
requesting the Singapore authorities to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment. They had argued throughout that Vaithilingam had attacked his friend in a sudden fit of anger during an argument while drinking and that there was no intention to kill. 'In fact, after stabbing Lenin, Arun took him
to a nearby hospital with his friends', his father said in a petition to President Nathan. 'He did not know until Lenin collapsed that he had been injured in the scuffle'.

Zulfikar bin Mustaffah, 32, an Indian migrant worker, was sentenced to death in November 2000 after being found in possession of a package containing approximately 70 grams of heroin and was executed in 2001. A drug addict since the age of 14, he dropped out of school at 15 and has spent most of his life in drug rehabilitation centres or in detention. Zulfikar was unemployed at the time of his arrest and had reportedly found it difficult to find work due to his criminal record for drug addiction. The evidence against him was that he agreed to deliver the package to a man he did not know, but claimed that he was unaware of the contents. This man also turned out to be an undercover agent. Amnesty International also joined in the outcry against the death sentence. A delegation of the Indian rights group Peoples Union for Civil Liberties met Singapore Consul Koh Siew Mui in Madras in another desperate bid to save his life. During a sitting of parliament in July 2001, the then MP and human rights campaigner, the late J.B. Jeyaretnam, called for a parliamentary debate on the case, saying: 'It is a known fact that someone who is given to drug-taking over a period of time will have his mental faculties affected, his power to think carefully and to rationalise. He becomes weak-minded and particularly vulnerable to people who try to use him or exploit him'. JBJ, as he was affectionately known to his friends and admirers, urged the Cabinet to consider various aspects of the case during examination of his clemency appeal. JBJ was given just a few minutes to speak before his arguments were rebutted by the Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs. No further discussion took place about this particular case or about the death penalty in general and the execution went ahead two months later. Like all those who preceded him on the gallows, Zulfikar was hanged on a Friday morning in September 2001 just as the sun was coming up.

Thiru Selvam, 28, a Singaporean father of two young children, was arrested after a friend of his was found in possession of approximately 800 grams of cannabis. The friend reportedly told the police that the drugs actually belonged to Selvam who denied this from start to finish. At his trial the judge reportedly told Selvam that if he confessed he
would be sentenced to 25 years in prison and 24 strokes of the cane. If not, he would be hanged. However Selvam stuck by his guns and refused to confess to a crime he had not committed. T am completely innocent', he told the judge. And, as the judge promised, he sentenced him to death in September 2000, while his friend was given a 25-year prison term. Selvam's mother died when he was a baby. His father remarried but began drinking heavily and died alcoholism when he was only 16. He had been using drugs from the age of 14 and was admitted to a drug rehabilitation centre the following year. Because he would not confess to something he had not done, Selvam was hanged quietly at dawn one Friday morning in September 2001. Had these tragic stories been reported by an independent press free to champion the civil rights of the
likes of Selvam, Zulfikar, Rozman and Vaithilingam, and to ensure they had fair trials the outcome of each case might have been completely different.

These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. They are not rare at all. According to Amnesty International, they highlight Singapore as having one of the harshest justice systems and the highest per capita rates of executions in the world. In particular, says Amnesty, studies have shown that the death sentence is more likely to be imposed in Singapore on those who are poorer and less educated making them more vulnerable than average. Local groups are also concerned about the poor working and living conditions of migrant workers in Singapore that make them more vulnerable. "They and international human rights organisations, stress that death penalty is a violation of right to life and should be repealed', said one report. Singapore, which has a reputation of being a relatively crime-free society, has resisted pressure mainly from Western countries and groups to drop its death penalty law, saying it was crucial in the fight against criminality. An internet poll showed a majority of Singaporeans support the death penalty. Of the 2,899 respondents, 55 per cent supported capital punishment 'as it helps keep the crime rate down'. Another 27 per cent also gave their support but said its use should be restricted. Only 14 per cent opposed the death penalty, while two per cent were unsure.

'The death penalty is an inherently unjust and arbitrary punishment, however heinous the crime for which it is provided. Studies have shown that it is more likely to be imposed on those who are poorer,
less educated and more vulnerable than average', says Tim Parritt, of Amnesty International in a recent annual report. The risk of error in applying the death penalty is inescapable, yet it is irrevocable. While Amnesty recognises the need to combat drug trafficking, there is no convincing evidence that the death penalty deters would-be traffickers more effectively than other punishments. Furthermore, there is always a risk that drug abusers may be executed, while those who mastermind the crime of trafficking evade arrest and punishment. Persistent drug addicts who have been admitted more than twice to a drugs rehabilitation centre are treated as criminals who may be imprisoned for up to 13 years and caned. Despite these draconian anti-drugs laws, drug addiction continues to be a problem.

There is no public debate about the use of the death penalty in the country. Controls imposed by the government on the press and civil society organisations curb freedom of expression and are an obstacle to the independent monitoring of human rights, including the death penalty. Despite such restrictions, there have been some attempts at raising public awareness about death penalty issues. For example, the non-governmental organization, the Think Centre, has published its concerns on its website and in October 2003 it urged the government to impose a moratorium on executions. The Singapore authorities have been criticised by both the United Nations and the European Union for their use of the death penalty. The EU has expressed particular concern about Singapore's use of the mandatory death penalty and high executions rates. The government of Singapore has consistently argued that the use of the death penalty is not a question of human rights. It has vigorously defended its stance that executions have been effective in deterring crime, particularly drug trafficking. In a letter addressed to the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions and circulated in 2001 at the 57th session of the Commission on Human Rights, the Permanent Representative of Singapore to the UN stated: 'the death penalty is primarily a criminal justice issue, and therefore is a question for the sovereign jurisdiction of each country. The right to life is not the only right, and it is the duty of societies and governments to decide how to balance competing rights against each other'. In 2002 the government of Singapore criticised the work of the then Special Rapporteur, claiming she had 'repeatedly
exceeded her mandate and degraded the credibility of her office' after she expressed concern about the case of two men facing execution for drug trafficking. Singapore signed a statement disassociating itself from a UN resolution adopted in April 2003 calling for the establishment of moratoria on executions pending complete abolition and stating that the abolition of the death penalty contributes to the progressive development of human rights. Claiming that the death penalty has been effective in controlling the trade in illicit drugs, the Singapore authorities reported an overall decline in the number of drug users arrested between 1994 and 2001. However, drug addiction has since continued to be a problem, particularly among the poorly educated, impoverished, unemployed and young people from broken homes.

On 16 January 2008, The Straits Times reprinted a surprise report posted on the Central Narcotics Bureau's website, revealing that heroin arrests had shot up by a whopping 600 per cent in 2007 after hitting an all-time low in 2005. 'The number of arrests linked to its use reached 670 - a six-fold jump over the previous years and the highest since 2002', said the report. "The white powder was the drug of choice for three in ten drug abusers nabbed. At a briefing on last year's drug scene, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) disclosed that 2,600 people had been arrested for drug use last year'. It offered two reasons for the jump in heroin use.

First, the increase could simply have been due to the fact that heroin was now cheaper than Subutex. Subutex was introduced in 2002 as a prescription drug to wean heroin addicts off their habit. The following year, the number of heroin abusers - which had already been dropping since the mid-1990s - fell to just 567, the first time since the 1970s that the figure was below 1,000. But addicts began abusing Subutex forcing the authorities to reclassify it as a controlled drug in August 2006. This meant that people caught trafficking in Subutex, could attract similar harsh penalties to those facing heroin abusers: long jail terms and caning. Over 40 per cent of the 285 heroin addicts arrested were former Subutex users who returned to 'chasing the dragon'. But CNB deputy director S. Vijakumar called this a 'limited' switch back to heroin. The 285 heroin addicts who were formers Subutex users made up only 6 per cent of the 5,000 known Subutext users, he said. He pointed out that some addicts could have gone back to heroin because heroin costs
$50 per 0.2 gram straw against Subutext's street price of $120 per 8 mg tablet.

The second reason offered for the rise in heroin is linked to the release of about 4,000 hard-core drug abusers from prison over the years. 'They could have influenced each other or drawn other people into taking up the habit again. We can't make it impossible for them to fraternise and meet each other', said Vijakumar. 'Nine out of ten heroin addicts caught last year were repeat abusers. For more than 60 per cent of
them, the return to the habit will put them behind bars for long terms'. The CNB reported that it had seized 17.2 kilograms of heroin in raids in 2007, about three times more than in 2006. It arrested 769 traffickers, while only 590 were caught in 2006. But Vijakumar stressed that 'the rise in the supply of heroin was not a response to higher demand for the drug'. 'Rather', he said, 'it came from syndicates bringing in the drugs in the hope of finding buyers'. He said there had been reports of bumper harvests of opium poppies in the region. 'This could swell the heroin supply, but the CNB will continue to be vigilant'.