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SINGAPORE, April 26 (PTI) — A Singapore court has rejected a 46-year-old Indian-origin cannabis smuggler’s application for a review of his case, a day before the death row inmate is due to be hanged, a media report said.
On Tuesday, Court of Appeal judge Steven Chong rejected Singaporean Tangaraju Suppiah’s application for review and a request for a stay of execution, Channel NewsAsia reported.
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He was backed by British billionaire Richard Branson, who claimed his conviction did not meet the standards and that “Singapore might be about to kill an innocent man”.
Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry responded to Branson’s remarks on Tuesday, saying it showed “disrespect” for Singapore’s judges and the criminal justice system.
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In a 15-page judgment, Judge Chong explained that Tangaraju had failed to provide a legal basis for the court to review his case.
“Nor has the court relied on exercising its inherent power to reopen closed criminal appeals,” he said.
“Therefore, the application was dismissed and no hearing was scheduled,” Judge Zhuang was quoted as saying in the report.
Tangaraju was convicted by a High Court judge in October 2018 of abetting an accomplice to conspire to traffic cannabis.
This was done by delivering about 1kg of cannabis to himself, an offense under the Misuse of Drugs Act.
Tangaraju was sentenced to death for failing to meet any of the criteria that would have spared him the death penalty.
He later appealed the conviction and sentence, but the appeal was dismissed in August 2019, with the court agreeing that Tangaraju had conspired to traffic cannabis and that he had used the phone to contact accomplice Mogan Valo.
Tangaraju filed a criminal motion in November 2022 seeking leave to apply for review of the concluded appeal.
The court also denied that request in February 2023.
In his latest bid, self-defense Tangaraju argued that the prosecution had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he and Morgan had reached an agreement to traffic a specified quantity of 1017.9 grams of cannabis.
However, Judge Chong said in Tangaraju’s trial the agreement with Mogan was to traffic an amount below the death penalty threshold or any smaller amount.
“It appears, therefore, that the applicant is essentially seeking to present an entirely new argument,” said Justice Chong.
He added that in any case, the agreement regarding the trafficking of quantities owned by Mogan had been proven beyond doubt.
Justice Chong agreed with the prosecution that this new argument was premised on “false assertions”.
Mogan testified that he collected marijuana from another person and was ordered to deliver the drug to Tangaraju.
He testified that he saw “two long squares wrapped in white wrappers” as marijuana and that the drug was subsequently analyzed and found to contain 1,017.9 grams of marijuana.
Judge Zhuang believes that there is no legal basis for the court to exercise the power of review.
“New arguments advanced by the applicant at the last minute, and no more, do not warrant the exercise of the Court’s inherent power to reopen a closed criminal appeal,” he added.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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