Two M’sians to hang today

SINGAPORE: This republic will hang two heroin traffickers this week, the government said on Wednesday, a day after the prime minister estimated that more than 70 people have been executed this year.  

Malaysians Vignes Mourthi and Moorthi Angappan will be executed today, Central Narcotics Bureau spokesman Dawn Sim said, in a departure from the usual secrecy surrounding this republic's death row. 

Between 70 and 80 people have been executed in the city-state since January, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong estimated in an interview with BBC Television. 

According to Goh's figure, this republic executed as many people in nine months as it did in the last three years combined. His office did not correct the figure in a statement issued after the broadcast. 

GRIEVING FAMILY: Vasu (centre) and his two unidentified daughter weeping yesterday after hearing that Vignes was to be executed.- APpic

Last year, this republic executed 28 people, the statement said. In 2001, 27 people were executed, and 21 in 2000. 

According to AFP, Goh's press secretary released a statement clarifying the prime minister's comments about this republic's capital punishment laws made on BBC's HARDtalk programme, in which he said “about 70 to 80 people” had been executed in the first nine months of this year. 

“In 2003, as of today, the death penalty was carried out on 10 occasions,” the press secretary said 

Goh said each execution order is reviewed by himself and the Cabinet. 

However, Goh admitted he did not know the precise number of executions. “I have got more important issues to worry about,” he said. 

London-based Human Rights Watchdog Amnesty International has criticised the island of four million people for having one of the world's highest per capita execution rates. 

But Goh insists the country's strict anti-drugs rules are essential to prevent a rise in the number of addicts there. 

“If you don't punish (the traffickers) and they manage to get their drugs through to Singapore, more people would be punished by their acts,” Goh told the BBC late on Tuesday. 

 

Vignes and Moorthi were convicted of smuggling 27.65gms of heroin across the Singapore-Malaysia border in September 2001. Offenders found with more than 15gms of heroin face the death penalty. 

Vignes's lawyer, M. Ravi, said he would file an appeal at the Supreme Court arguing that Vignes's original state-appointed lawyer had ignored evidence that could have led to an acquittal during his trial in August last year. 

 

An earlier appeal to President S.R. Nathan – who has the final authority to overturn a death penalty – was rejected in May. 

Vignes's father, Vasu Mourthi, showed journalists the letter notifying him of his son's impending execution. 

“You are advised to make the necessary funeral arrangements. If you are unable to do so, cremation will be carried out by the state,” said the letter signed by Changi Prison Superintendent Peck Tiang Hock. – Agencies  

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