Drug smuggling death penalty a deterrent - Singapore
Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam says he has no doubts about the country鈥檚 policy.
Singapore鈥檚 Minister for Home Affairs and Law has told the 大象传媒 he does not have any doubts about the country鈥檚 mandatory death penalty for drug traffickers.
鈥淐apital punishment is one aspect of a whole series of measures that we have to deal with drug abuse problems,鈥� K. Shanmugam told HARDtalk鈥檚 Stephen Sackur.
鈥淚t鈥檚 imposed on drug traffickers, and it鈥檚 imposed because there鈥檚 clear evidence that it鈥檚 a serious deterrence for would-be drug traffickers.鈥�
Asked about the recent execution of a man who had spent more than 10 years on death row after being caught bringing the equivalent of three tablespoons of heroin into Singapore, Minister Shanmugam said 鈥� the courts found that he had the working of a criminal mind, and he made a deliberate, purposeful, calibrated, calculated decision to make money, to bring the drugs in鈥�.
Malaysian citizen Nagaenthran Dharmalingam had been assessed by a medical expert to have had an IQ of 69 - a level recognised as indicating an intellectual disability.
His defence team had argued his sentence should be commuted to life and his case attracted international attention.
The minister said that that a psychiatrist called by the defence agreed that he was not intellectually disabled.
Singapore has some of the toughest drug laws in the world with those caught carrying more than 15g of heroin subject to the death penalty.
