Following the news of Mr Tangaraju s/o Suppiah’s execution on Wednesday (26 Apr), Richard Branson has spoken out against Singapore’s criminal justice system.
The British founder of the Virgin Group voiced his opinions on his blog on Monday (24 Apr).
Source: Forbes
Among other allegations, he opined that “Singapore may be about to kill an innocent man”.
Subsequently, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) released a response addressing his points.
In his post, the business magnate commented that Mr Tangaraju’s case is “shocking” on many levels.
Firstly, he stated that despite the Singapore government’s claim that the death penalty is an effective deterrent, it has not given any evidence to prove the claim.
He then said Mr Tangaraju’s execution would not make Singapore any safer, nor would it stop drug flow into the country.
Following this, he touched on the details of Mr Tangaraju’s case, stating that the evidence was circumstantial.
According to Mr Branson, Mr Tangaraju was nowhere near the drugs during his arrest.
Additionally, “many observers”, including himself, were shocked by “how thin the evidence against him was”.
Concluding his blog post, he requested Singapore’s authorities pardon Mr Tangaraju.
He said:
The death penalty is already a dark stain on the country’s reputation. An execution following such an unsafe conviction would only make things worse.
A day after Mr Branson’s blog post, MHA released a response addressing his allegations.
In the first section of the response, MHA outlined the facts of Mr Tangaraju’s case based on the investigations.
Contrary to what Mr Branson said, it asserted that his conviction met the standards for a criminal conviction.
Mr Tangaraju had trafficked 1017.9 grammes of cannabis — more than twice the capital threshold in Singapore.
Furthermore, the case was brought to the High Court of Singapore, which ultimately found him guilty.
Source: Manifold Times
The court found Mr Tangaraju’s defence that he was not coordinating the delivery “unbelievable”.
In its official statement, MHA has called Mr Branson’s allegations “regrettable”.
It noted that Mr Branson assumed to know more about the case than the Singapore Courts when the latter had looked into it for over three years.
MHA said:
Singapore’s policies on drugs and the death penalty are derived from our own experience… Mr Branson is free to advocate his beliefs for his own countrymen, but he should respect Singaporeans’ choice.
Notably, this is not the first time the British businessman has made such assertions against Singapore’s approach to drugs.
Last year, he objected to the execution of convicted drug trafficker Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, prompting the Government to invite the billionaire to a live televised debate with Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam.
However, the latter turned down the invite.
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Featured image adapted from Richard Branson on Facebook and Kokila Annamalai on Facebook.
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