With everyone talking about Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, the ethics of the death penalty has once again been placed in the spotlight.
In Singapore, if someone brings in a large quantity of drugs – an amount that exceeds the stipulated quantity – and is convicted of drug trafficking, they will be sentenced to death.
That’s what happened to Nagaenthran back in 2010, and now to his compatriot.
Caught Carrying Heroin in Bike’s Rear Box
At the time of his offences in 2018, Munusamy Ramarmurth had been working in Singapore for 14 years.
The cleaning supervisor was in the cleaner’s room at Harbourfront Centre Tower 2 on the afternoon of 26 Jan that year when officers came in and arrested him.
They then escorted the then 36-year-old to his motorcycle, which was parked at the open-air carpark at Keppel Bay Tower. When they opened the rear box of his bike, they found a red plastic bag.
The bag held 6.3kg of a granular substance, which was later found to contain 57.54g of heroin.
Claimed He Didn’t Know It was Drugs
In his trial, Munusamy claimed he didn’t know the bag contained drugs, thinking it held stolen mobile phones instead.
He said he had allowed another Malaysian named Saravanan to keep the bag in his bike’s rear box temporarily as another person known as “Boy” would collect it. He had done the same thing for Saravanan in 2017 – storing stolen phones – and said he thought he was doing it again.
Saravan allegedly told him that the items in the bag were “panas”, which translates to “hot”, but which Munsamy took to mean “stolen”. His lawyer, however, did not disagree that the term could have been used to refer to illegal drugs.
The judge wasn’t buying Munsamy’s story, however, noting that Munsumay did not mention the similar encounter he had with Saravanan in 2017, nor that the bag would later be collected by someone else.
Sentenced to Death
Yesterday (15 Nov), the 39-year-old was sentenced to death for drug trafficking.
He was found guilty on 10 Nov of trafficking 57.54g of heroin. In Singapore, a drug trafficker can be put to death if they bring in more than 15g of heroin.
According to the law, the following quantities of other drugs also warrant the death penalty:
- 1200 grams of opium containing more than 30 grams of morphine
- 30 grams of morphine
- 30 grams of cocaine
- 500 grams of cannabis
- 250 grams of methamphetamine
Mumsamy’s sentence comes in the midst of public outcry over the impending execution of Nagaenthran, who was sentenced to be hanged for trafficking about 42.72gm of heroin.
The online petition calling for a presidential pardon for Nagaenthran has garnered over 85,000 signatures at the time of writing, and the cries calling for the sentence to be reduced are getting louder.
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Featured Image: karanik yimpat / Shutterstock.com
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