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The sentencing of a man in Singapore to death via Zoom video for his role in a 2011 drug deal has outraged human rights activists who call issuing capital punishment verdicts during the coronavirus pandemic “abhorrent.”
Punithan Genasan, a 37-year-old Malaysian, was sentenced Friday to death by hanging for masterminding a 2011 heroin transaction. But the vast majority of court hearings in Singapore have been adjourned until at least June 1 because of coronavirus lockdowns.
It’s the second known case where a capital punishment verdict was delivered remotely since the pandemic.
A man with a facemask walks past a wall mural in Singapore’s Little India district on May 16. Wearing of facemarks is mandatory for everyone who goes outside their homes to control the spread of the coronavirus in the city state. Singapore has reported more than 27,000 COVID-19 cases, with 90% of the cases linked to foreign workers dormitories, but it has a low fatality rate of 21 deaths. (AP Photo/YK Chan)
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“For the safety of all involved in the proceedings, the hearing for Public Prosecutor v. Punithan A/L Genasan was conducted by video-conferencing,” a spokesperson for Singapore’s Supreme Court told Reuters.
Court documents said the judge found Genasan recruited two drug couriers and directed them to transport and deliver 28.5 grams of heroin.
Genasan’s lawyer, Peter Fernando, told the news outlet that he did not object to the judgment being delivered via video. He said his client is considering an appeal.
In Singapore, which has recorded more than 29,000 coronavirus cases and at least 22 deaths, the death penalty is a possible sentence in a range of offenses including drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping, waging war against the government and use of firearms. The country has defended capital punishment as a deterrent for the most serious crimes. Most of the cases are drug-related.
The city-state imposed a partial lockdown in early April after it was hit by a second wave of infections sparked by foreign workers living in crowded dormitories. It plans to gradually ease restrictions starting next month.
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Amnesty International said in a statement that the ruling was a "reminder that Singapore continues to defy international law and standards by imposing the death penalty for drug trafficking.”
“At a time when the global attention is focused on saving and protecting lives in a pandemic, the pursuit of the death penalty is all the more abhorrent,” it added.
Phil Robertson, the Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for Asia, told Reuters that Singapore’s use of remote technology to sentence a man to death makes the city-state's death penalty even more “inherently cruel and inhumane.”
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The organization condemned a similar ruling made in Nigeria earlier this month.
Olalekan Hameed, who pleaded not guilty to killing a 76-year-old man in December 2018, was sentenced to death by hanging last month.
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