Richard Branson disrespecting Singapore's judicial system with death penalty allegations, says MHA

SINGAPORE - British billionaire Richard Branson has shown disrespect to Singapore's judicial system by making allegations about a court case involving a drug trafficker, said the Home Affairs Ministry.

It said: "It is regrettable that Mr Branson, in wanting to argue his case, should resort to purporting to know more about the case than Singapore's Courts, which had examined the case thoroughly and comprehensively over a period of more than three years. 

"He shows disrespect for Singapore's judges and our criminal justice system with such allegations", MHA said in a media statement on Tuesday.

Mr Branson had commented on the use of the death penalty in Singapore, in a blog post on Monday titled "Why Tangaraju Suppiah doesn't deserve to die".

He was referring to the impending execution of the 46-year-old Singaporean who was convicted in 2018 of abetting the trafficking of 1017.9 g of cannabis.

The ministry said: "Mr Branson claimed that Tangaraju's conviction did not meet the standards for criminal conviction and that 'Singapore may be about to kill an innocent man'. This is patently untrue."

MHA noted that the Misuse of Drugs Act provides for the death penalty if the amount of cannabis is more than 500g. The amount Tangaraju was convicted for is more than twice the capital threshold. 

This is sufficient to feed the addiction of about 150 abusers for a week, said MHA.

Tangaraju's case was tried before the High Court of Singapore which found enough evidence to conclude that the charge against him had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 

The ministry pointed out that Tangaraju was represented by legal counsel throughout the proceedings, including during his appeal. The Court of Appeal had affirmed the High Court's findings and upheld the conviction.

Said MHA: "Far from the suggestion that Tangaraju was innocent because he was 'not anywhere near the drugs at the time of his arrest', the evidence clearly showed that he was the person coordinating the delivery of drugs, for the purpose of trafficking."

Tangaraju's phone numbers were used to communicate with two others involved in the delivery of the cannabis.

MHA noted that the High Court found Tangaraju's evidence – that he was not the one communicating with the two others involved in the case – to be unbelievable. It also found that he was in fact the one coordinating the delivery of the cannabis.

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This is not the first time Mr Branson has criticised Singapore's stance towards capital punishment.

In Oct 2022, he declined an invitation to participate in a live televised debate with Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam regarding the death penalty.

He said then that he felt a debate on such a platform would lack nuance.

In its statement on Tuesday, MHA said that despite previous and multiple clarifications, Mr Branson continues to make sweeping assertions against Singapore's approach on drugs, including the use of the death penalty on those who traffic large amounts.

The ministry said that Mr Branson's statement that Singaporean authorities have repeatedly failed to provide any tangible evidence for the effective deterrent of drug-related crime is untrue.

It said: "We have repeatedly set out clear evidence of the deterrent effect of the death penalty in Singapore's context, which Mr Branson seems to have conveniently ignored."

This includes studies that have found that drug traffickers deliberately restricted the amount of drugs they carried in order not to exceed the capital sentence threshold. They were willing to risk imprisonment, but not the death penalty, the ministry said.

MHA also said Mr Branson's allegations that Singapore's disproportionate use of capital punishment on minorities, an obsession with small-scale drug traffickers, and the widely reported harassment of human rights defenders and capital defence lawyers were false assertions. 

"We have responded to the allegations before, and it is regrettable that he continues to assert these falsehoods."

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.