Singapore executed a prisoner convicted of drug trafficking on Friday for the fifth time since the country resumed the application of the death penalty at the end of March, which had been suspended at the start of the pandemic.
Nazari Lajim from Singapore, 64 years old, was hanged — the method of executing convicts in Singapore — in the early hours of the morning at Changi Prison.
Anti-death penalty activist Kokila Annamalai and lawyer Ravi Madasamy, who has defended several death row inmates, confirmed the execution in social networks.
These are photos of Nazari from his last photo shoot, a few days before his execution. This is the 64-year-old man executed in Singapore early today. pic.twitter.com/dXNOJPB5HM
— Kokila Annamalai (@Kokilaparvathi) July 22, 2022
Lajim, with a long history of drug use and other crimes, was convicted in 2017 of trafficking 960 grams of heroin.
The condemned man submitted a last-minute request to a court on Thursday to delay the execution, which was rejected by the magistrates.
Since 2017, 29 people were executed in Singaporethe vast majority for drug-related crimes, activist Kirsten Han, coordinator of the non-governmental organization Transformative Justice Collective, which advocates for the abolition of capital punishment, said on July 7.
In a controversial and high-profile case, Singapore executed Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, a malaysian with intellectual disabilityconvicted of drug trafficking, after a long legal battle and despite criticism from the United Nations and the European Union and repeated calls for clemency.
In early July, Singapore’s Home Minister, Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam, defended the execution of Nagaenthran and other prisoners during an interview with the BBC, stating that in the fight against drugs, capital punishment “saves lives”.
The city-state has one of the strictest laws in the world with regard to the use and trafficking of narcotics, sanctioning in most cases with a northern penalty.
Activists like Han have been warning that the near saturation of death rows is causing executions to accelerate, after a two-year lapse due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Source: Observadora
