CORRECTION NOTICE:
This post contains false statements of fact.
Executions are only scheduled when a Prisoner Awaiting Capital Punishment (“PACP”) has exhausted all rights of appeal and the clemency process relating to his/her conviction and sentence.
In Mohammad Azwan bin Bohari’s (“Azwan”) case, he underwent trial for possessing not less than 26.5g of diamorphine for the purpose of trafficking, in the High Court, and was convicted and sentenced to death on 11 February 2019. His appeal to the Court of Appeal against his conviction and sentence was dismissed on 24 October 2019.
His applications for clemency were denied by the President on 23 March 2020 and on 15 June 2022.
Since his appeal was dismissed, he has been a joint applicant with other PACPs for three legal proceedings, which were all dismissed by the Court as they were found to be unmeritorious. The Court also found that one of those proceedings was an abuse of the court process.
Some PACPs abuse the court process by filing last-minute applications to stymie their scheduled execution.
Azwan filed two last-minute applications to stay his execution. The first was allowed, hence his execution originally scheduled for 19 April 2024 was stayed. The second was dismissed and his execution was carried out on 4 October 2024.
Azwan was given ample opportunity to have his case heard in court. Azwan’s execution was not arbitrarily scheduled and stayed, nor without regard for due legal process.
In all criminal cases, the Prosecution bears the legal burden of proving the case against an accused person beyond a reasonable doubt. Even where the Prosecution relies on the presumption of trafficking under Section 17 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, it still bears the legal burden of proving the material elements of the charge, i.e. fact of possession and knowledge of the nature of the drugs, beyond a reasonable doubt. This presumption can be rebutted if the accused person is able to show, on a balance of probabilities, that he/she was not trafficking in drugs.
For the correct facts, visit: https://www.gov.sg/article/factually051024
TJC’S VIEW ON THIS LATEST POFMA DIRECTION
TJC categorically rejects the government’s claim that we have spread falsehoods. That K Shanmugam, the Minister for Home Affairs, can order us to publish Correction Directions under POFMA is a demonstration of state power, not of truth-seeking. We have put up the Correction Directions not because we accept any of what the government asserts, but because of the grossly unjust terms of the POFMA law. We are choosing to reserve what resources and energies we have for our abolitionist work. We will not waste our money, time or energy to engage in long drawn-out fights with the state over a law that, in our view, is little more than a political weapon used to crush dissent and is rapidly losing any credibility it had in the eyes of the Singaporean public.
The government’s existing dominance over Singapore’s mainstream media and public space—allowing them to, over decades, spread pro-death penalty and pro-War on Drugs propaganda without contestation—does not appear to be enough for them. They are now not just using POFMA to shut down criticism, but attempting to use us as a mouthpiece for their disgusting opinions.
If the government does not like how bad it looks when the multiple injustices and cruelties of the capital punishment regime are pointed out, it could simply abolish the death penalty. That would be a far better use of its power than chucking POFMA orders at activists.
On 30 September, Azwan’s family received the dreaded execution notice for the second time this year, informing them that he will be hanged in four days’ time.
Azwan, who has been on death row since 2019, first received an execution notice on 12 April this year, in the middle of his family’s Hari Raya celebrations. But one day before his scheduled execution on 19 April, the prison called his sister to inform her that the execution was “on hold” as he had a pending case before the court. They said that it would be postponed until they received further orders from the court.
Azwan’s was one of five executions that were first scheduled, then stayed due to ongoing proceedings, in April and May this year.
It is perplexing that Azwan’s execution has been fixed again, because he still has a case before the court, along with 30 other prisoners.
The emotional rollercoaster that Azwan and his family have been subjected to—with his execution date fixed, stayed, then fixed again within a six-month period—is causing immense pain and trauma.
His loved ones do not understand why the state intends to proceed with Azwan’s execution at this point, despite him still having ongoing legal proceedings.
Azwan was arrested for drugs in 2015, when he was 38 years old.
He said that half of the drugs in his possession were for his own consumption, but admitted that the rest was meant for sale, so as to cover the cost of the drugs he had become dependent upon. However, the judge did not believe his defence of partial consumption.
Some aspects of Azwan’s case are deeply troubling.
The Deputy Public Prosecutor argued during the trial that Azwan’s testimony alone was not enough to rebut the presumption of possession for the purpose of trafficking, and that Azwan proving personal consumption was an “uphill task” when a “large quantity” of drugs were involved. But why should an accused person’s testimony be inherently unbelievable?
This point also highlights the grossly unjust burden of proof that the law places on the accused person in a trafficking case—one that carries the death penalty, no less!—where the accused person is presumed to be guilty of trafficking and has to successfully rebut the presumption to save his own life. In other words, the burden is not on the State to prove that he was trafficking.
How does the court decide whether or not to believe someone when they say the drugs in their possession are for personal consumption?
There is no scientific way to determine how much drugs someone consumes, and at what rate. The legal thresholds of drug quantities that invite a trafficking charge are arbitrary and differ in every country. In most other states, the prosecution has to prove trafficking, not presume it on the basis of the quantity seized. It is indeed possible that Azwan had half the drugs for his own consumption, but the problem is this: Singapore’s laws require him to somehow prove that this was the case. The cost of failing to do so? His life.
Azwan told the court that he admitted to trafficking during interrogation because a police officer had promised to let him see his ex-girlfriend if he “cooperated”. He also said that he had been threatened by the police officer. He therefore asked for the statements taken at the time to be deemed inadmissible.
But the judge allowed the statements into evidence, saying he found it “hard to believe that the CNB would allow two persons arrested at the same time to meet each other” and that there was “no evidence of coercion or threat”.
This draws attention to another vital injustice which we have raised repeatedly—in Singapore, accused persons are routinely interrogated without a lawyer present. This is outrageous enough in a non-capital case, but when the stakes are as high as life or death, it is utterly unacceptable for an accused person to be interrogated without a lawyer to look out for their rights and ensure that they are treated fairly.
Many death row prisoners (and other accused persons) have stated that there were issues with the way they were interrogated. Their claims are often dismissed because, once again, there is no “evidence” beyond the accused person’s testimony.
In the final line of his judgment convicting Azwan, the judge wrote: “I…sentence him to suffer death.”
We stand in pained solidarity with Azwan and his family as they confront the unimaginable horror of his impending execution.
Every instance of state murder is horrific. We highlight the issues in Azwan’s case to expose the many injustices embedded in the death penalty regime, in addition to the inherent cruelty and injustice of this brutal punishment.
Sign the petition for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty at change.org/StopTheKillingSG.
#StopTheKilling
#AbolishTheDeathPenalty
Transformative Justice Collective 