Singapore hangs first woman in 2 decades after she was convicted of trafficking 1 ounce of heroin

Singapore conducted its first execution of a woman in 19 years on Friday and its second hanging this week for drug trafficking despite calls for the city-state to cease capital punishment for drug-related crimes.

Saridewi Djamani, 45, was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking about 31 grams (1 ounce) of diamorphine, or pure heroin, the Central Narcotics Bureau said. It said the amount was “sufficient to feed the addiction of about 370 abusers for a week.”

Activists said another execution is planned next week.

Singapore’s laws mandate the death penalty for anyone convicted of trafficking more than 500 grams (17.6 ounces) of cannabis and 15 grams (0.5 ounces) of heroin.

Last October, Singapore’s Court of Appeal dismissed Djamani’s appeal, finding that “it is not in dispute that she was not a courier and the only punishment available is the mandatory death penalty.”

Djamani’s execution came two days after that of a Singaporean man, Mohammed Aziz Hussain, 56, for trafficking around 50 grams (1.7 ounces) of heroin.

The narcotics bureau said both prisoners were accorded due process, including appeals of their convictions and sentences and petitions for presidential clemency.

Human rights groups, international activists and the United Nations have urged Singapore to halt executions for drug offenses and say there is increasing evidence it is ineffective as a deterrent. Singapore authorities insist capital punishment is important to halting drug demand and supply.

Human rights groups say it has executed 15 people for drug offenses since it resumed hangings in March 2022, an average of one a month.

Anti-death penalty activists said the last woman known to have been hanged in Singapore was 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen, also for drug trafficking, in 2004.

Transformative Justice Collective, a Singapore group that advocates for the abolishment of capital punishment, said a new execution notice has been issued to another prisoner for Aug. 3, the fifth this year alone.

It said the prisoner is an ethnic Malay citizen who worked as a delivery driver before his arrest in 2016. He was convicted in 2019 of trafficking around 50 grams (1.7 ounces) of heroin and his appeal was dismissed last year, it said.

The group said the man had maintained in his trial that he believed he was delivering contraband cigarettes for a friend to whom he owed money, and he didn’t verify the contents of the bag as he trusted his friend.

The High Court judge ruled that their ties weren’t close enough to warrant the kind of trust he claimed to have had for his friend. Although the court found he was merely a courier, the man still had to be given the mandatory death penalty because prosecutors didn’t issue him a certificate of having cooperated with them, it said.

“But how could he have cooperated if, as he told the police and the court, he had not even been aware that he was being used to deliver heroin?” the group said on Facebook.

The group said it “condemns, in the strongest terms, the state’s bloodthirsty streak” and reiterated calls for an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

Critics say Singapore’s harsh policy punishes low-level traffickers and couriers, who are typically recruited from marginalized groups with vulnerabilities. They say Singapore is also out of step with the trend of more countries moving away from capital punishment. Neighboring Thailand has legalized cannabis while Malaysia ended the mandatory death penalty for serious crimes this year.

Singapore is one of only four countries, alongside China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, where executions for drug-related offences were confirmed in 2022, according to Amnesty International.

“This week has cast a harsh and tragic spotlight on the complete lack of death penalty reform in Singapore, as the state carried out two unlawful drug executions, including the first known execution of a woman in two decades,” Amnesty International’s death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said. “As most of the world turns its back on this cruel punishment, Singapore’s government continues down the path of executing people for drug-related crimes, violating international human rights law and standards.”