Last week, local activist Kokila Annamalai shared that Tangaraju s/o Suppiah has been scheduled for execution on Wednesday (26 Apr).
The 46-year-old was sentenced to the mandatory death penalty after being convicted of abetting an attempt to traffic cannabis into Singapore.
His family has called on President Halimah Yacob to stop the execution and for the courts to review his conviction and sentence.
But it looks like nothing has changed as the prison is purportedly making final preparations for the execution.
On Sunday (23 Apr), the Transformative Justice Collective, which seeks the reform of Singapore’s criminal punishment system, shared via a media release that Mr Tangaraju’s family has called on President Halimah to halt his execution.
They also urged the courts to “relook his case from the beginning”, maintaining that he “has not done anything wrong”.
His elder sister Leelavathy claimed that there were “so many things” that they wanted to raise in court and that Mr Tangaraju “never had that fair hearing”.
Source: Kokila Annamalai on Facebook
Furthermore, Ms Kokila pointed out that the evidence against the Singaporean inmate is “shockingly thin”.
According to the press release, Mr Tangaraju was convicted and sentenced to death in 2018 for abetting by conspiracy to traffic 1,017.9g of cannabis.
Source: Kokila Annamalai on Facebook
However, he supposedly “never touched” the cannabis and was convicted after being tied to two numbers found on the phones of two men the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) had arrested.
One of these phones had been used to coordinate the delivery of the drugs.
By then, though, Mr Tangaraju was already in custody for another offence. Investigators never recovered his phones for analysis.
Additionally, the Transformative Justice Collective alleged that police interrogated Mr Tangaraju in the absence of legal counsel.
His requests for a Tamil interpreter were denied even when he said he couldn’t fully understand the investigating officer’s questions or the recorded statement.
In late 2022, Mr Tangaraju filed an application seeking a review of his case, which was dismissed earlier this year.
Refusing to give up, his family is now calling on President Halimah to halt his execution.
On Sunday (23 Apr), Mr Tangaraju’s loved ones and supporters held a solidarity event and delivered 59 clemency appeal letters to the Istana.
Source: Transformative Justice Collective on Facebook
“We want assurance that the President will open and read the clemency letters submitted and consider them seriously,” said Subhashini, Mr Tangaraju’s niece.
Despite their efforts, it appears that the execution will proceed as planned.
On Tuesday (25 Apr), Ms Kokila penned an update on the arrangements for Mr Tangaraju’s final requests.
For his last meals in the week leading up to his execution, he asked for chicken rice, nasi biryani, ice cream soda, and milo-flavoured sweets.
While prison authorities have yet to locate the sweets, he could still taste his favourite dishes again after nine years.
Not all of his wishes were fulfilled, though.
Mr Tangaraju had requested to receive special prayer beads and kumkum, a red powder with religious significance, from a temple in Selangor, Malaysia.
After hearing that the request was approved, his family “went to great lengths” to secure both items. But the prison allegedly did not allow it when they tried to pass them to him.
The prison explained that the request they approved entailed giving Mr Tangaraju a small “run-of-the-mill” version of the prayer beads, which was not what he wanted.
They would also get the kumkum from their usual source, but it would not be blessed at the temple, something that “mattered a lot” to him.
Understandably frustrated, his family questioned why the prison wouldn’t even allow Mr Tangaraju such ” small comforts”.
In Ms Kokila’s post, she stated that the prison has already returned Mr Tangaraju’s personal belongings to his family.
These included the clothes and ring he wore at the time of his remand, his shoes, and a piece of holy thread he tied on his hand.
Holding these items for the first time in nine years, Ms Kokila noted, left his family “very shaken”.
“It drove home how, even as the family continue to fight to save his life, the prison’s protocols — each step leading closer to his death — unfold as a reminder that there are bigger forces at play, forces that are determined to give them no way out.”
They got his things, because they won’t get him.
Mr Tangaraju had supposedly even told his family that prison guards would be taking him to the execution chamber to explain how the execution would take place.
While Ms Kokila could not confirm if this happened, she pointed out how “hearing these things [adds] incredible pain to a distraught family”.
Despite his impending execution, Mr Tangaraju wants to put his family first.
Ms Kokila shared that death row inmates are usually allowed to use money from their prison account to purchase music CDs they wish to listen to.
Instead of doing so, Mr Tangaraju asked for the money to go to his family instead.
He also agreed to the final photoshoot that the prison arranges ahead of an execution despite not wanting to go through with it at first.
This is because a close family member wanted to have more recent photos of his “beloved boy”.
The last photo Mr Tangaraju’s family has of him was taken decades ago when he was just 19.
“The next — and likely last — time his photo is taken, it will be by prison officials who are party to his impending murder,” said Ms Kokila.
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Featured image adapted from Kokila Annamalai on Facebook and Facebook.
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