Man Gets Sentenced To Death In Singapore By Judge Via Zoom Call
Image via dennizn / Shutterstock.com
In an incident only expected of a dystopian drama, a man was handed the death penalty in Singapore via a Zoom call on Friday.
37-year-old Punithan Genasan from Malaysia was sentenced to death through the video-conferencing software by the Supreme Court of Singapore for his suspected involvement in the trafficking of an ounce of heroin, as reported by the Straits Times.
The man was accused of introducing two drug dealers to each other in 2011, and instructing one of the dealers to drive into the neighboring city-state of Singapore to meet the other.
Genasan has refuted being acquainted with the drug dealers, and denies his involvement in the case. He might make an appeal to the ruling.
The decision was made virtually as Singapore remains in a partial lockdown.
The country is among a few countries that still enforce capital punishment, which it delivers to people found guilty of murder, illegally using firearms, kidnapping, or possessing 15 grams of heroin or 500 grams of cannabis.
The country has been called out by human rights activists for still imposing the death sentence. Amnesty International named it as just one out of four nations to still sentence people to death for possessing or trafficking drugs.
The Human Rights Watch said that given the “inherently cruel and inhumane” nature of capital punishment, the fact that the sentene was handed out over a virtual meeting made it “even more so.”
This is the first time Singapore has issued the death penalty remotely, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court of Singapore told NBC News. The ruling comes shortly after a court in Nigeria had condemned a man to death for allegedly killing the mother of his employer.
[via Mic, cover image via dennizn / Shutterstock.com]
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