A Singaporean man who is due to be hanged this week for abetting an attempt to smuggle cannabis is one of a growing number of death row prisoners who have to represent themselves after their appeals because they cannot access lawyers, activists have said.
Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, was sentenced to death in 2018 after a judge found he was the owner of a phone number used to coordinate an attempt to traffic 1 kilogram of cannabis. He is due to be executed on Wednesday.
Campaigners have cited various concerns over the handling of his case, including claims he was questioned by police without legal counsel, and claims made in court that the Tamil speaker was also questioned by the police in English without an interpreter.
Last November, when Tangaraju filed an application for his case to be reviewed after an unsuccessful appeal, he represented himself in court.
Kirsten Han, a journalist and activist with Transformative Justice Collective, group calling for reform of Singapore’s justice system, said that over the past year it had become “almost impossible” to find a local lawyer to take on post-appeal death row cases.
In one case last April, Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a Malaysian man with learning difficulties whose case caused a global outcry as well as a rare protest in Singapore, was represented by his mother. Panchalai Supermaniam, a cleaner from Ipoh Malaysia, spoke through an interpreter as she pleaded for a stay of execution, say campaigners. Her son was killed the next day.
Over the past year, individuals on death row have self-represented in four cases, including Tangaraju’s. One case involved a joint application of 24 death row prisoners.
Post-appeal cases are not covered by Singapore’s legal aid scheme, Han said. “Families have to either rely on lawyers being willing to do it pro bono, or they will have to find the money somehow to pay, which can be really difficult considering most of them come from working-class backgrounds,” she said.
Not only had there been a surge in the number of scheduled executions over the past year, after a hiatus during Covid, but it appeared that lawyers who take on such cases were increasingly being accused of abusing court process, and facing financial costs for such applications when they fail, said Han.
Last year, Singapore passed the post-appeal applications in capital cases bill, which tightens the rules around making applications after their appeal has failed. Court documents for Tangaraju’s post-appeal application name two lawyers for the respondent but say his representation was the “applicant in person”.
The Central Narcotics Bureau of Singapore has said that Tangaraju was “accorded full due process under the law, and had access to legal counsel throughout the process”. It said claims he had asked for and was denied an interpreter for his initial police statement were raised for the first time during his crossexamination and found to be “disingenuous” by a judge.
The case has prompted international criticism, including from Reprieve, Amnesty International and the businessman Richard Branson, who has campaigned against the death penalty. Singapore “may be about to kill an innocent man”, Branson wrote on his blog.
“Tangaraju was actually not anywhere near these drugs at the time of his arrest. This was largely a circumstantial case that relied on inferences,” Branson wrote.
Campaigners say Tangaraju did not handle the drugs. Prosecutors said his phone numbers were linked to the trafficking attempt.
Singapore, which has strict drug laws, executed 11 people last year for drug-related cases. The Singaporean government maintains that the death penalty is an effective deterrent against such crime and that it is widely supported by the public.
Campaigners say that, in addition to difficulty finding legal representation while awaiting execution, an accused person can be interrogated without a lawyer present when arrested. While Singapore recognises the right to legal counsel and representation, this must only be made available within “reasonable time” – not immediately.
Sara Kowal, the vice-president of the Capital Punishment Justice Project, said access to justice was a problem in a number of jurisdictions that still imposed the death penalty. “Any judicial system that has the death penalty needs to be held to a particularly high standard for fair trial rights, and should be robust enough to hold up to being scrutinised at that level,” she said.
“Access to counsel, to be meaningful, has to really start at the start of a police investigation and be an option all the way through, even up to the gallows,” she said.
