In a rare execution, Singapore hanged a 45-year-old Singaporean woman, Saridewi Binte Djamani, for drug trafficking. She was convicted of possessing over 30.72 grams of pure heroin, which is more than twice the threshold for the death penalty under the country’s strict drugs legislation. The execution marks the city-state’s first female execution in nearly 20 years.
“The capital sentence of death imposed on Saridewi Binte Djamani was carried out on 28 July 2023,” the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said in a statement. Singapore’s Narcotics Bureau said that the capital punishment was carried out on the stipulated date after Saridewi exhausted all legal avenues, including an appeal that was dismissed in October 2022. Her petition for clemency was also unsuccessful.
Singapore’s strict drug laws include the death penalty for drug trafficking offenses involving significant quantities of drugs. Capital punishment is seen as a critical component of Singapore’s comprehensive harm prevention strategy, targeting both drug demand and supply.
The execution of Saridewi has sparked debates on the effectiveness and ethics of capital punishment, especially for drug-related offences. The latest case highlights Singapore’s firm stance on combating drug trafficking and its commitment to enforcing stringent laws to deter drug-related crimes.
This comes a few days after 57-year-old Mohd Aziz bin Hussain was hanged on Wednesday after being convicted of trafficking approximately 50 grams of heroin.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, called on the government to halt the practice, arguing that there was no evidence to support the death penalty’s effectiveness as a deterrent to crime.
Singapore’s stance on capital punishment for drug-related offenses places it alongside China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia as one of the four countries that executed prisoners for such crimes last year.
(With agency inputs)
