President rejects clemency for condemned former athlete
Agence France Presse
April 26, 2005
SINGAPORE
President S.R. Nathan has rejected an appeal to save the life of a
convicted drug smuggler at the centre of a renewed campaign to
abolish the death penalty here, the prisoner's lawyer said Tuesday,
April 26.
Shanmugam Murugesu, 38, a former star athlete who was convicted of
trying to import 1029.8 grams (36 ounces) of cannabis, is expected
to be hanged at Changi Prison in three weeks' time, his lawyer, M.
Ravi, said.
"I just got a letter from the Istana (the presidential office)
dated April 22nd," Ravi told AFP.
The letter said that the president "after due consideration of the
petition and on the advice of the cabinet had decided that the
sentence of death should stand," according to Ravi.
Murugesu, who was arrested at a checkpoint while coming from
Malaysia on August 29, 2003, was convicted and sentenced to death
by the High Court in April last year.
Civil rights activists in Singapore are using Murugesu's case to
mount a renewed campaign to abolish the death penalty in the
affluent island-republic, where voices of dissent against the
government are rarely heard.
Human rights group Amnesty International in a report last year
singled out Singapore for executing more people than any other
country relative to its population and renewed calls for it to
abolish the death penalty.
Sinapan Samydorai, executive director of the Think Centre civil
rights group, said there were currently eight other people on death
row in Singapore.
In their appeal, the activists had highlighted the fact that
Murugesu had served in the armed forces for eight years and
represented the country in the 1995 World Championship Jetski
Finals in the United States.
On the advice of Murugesu's lawyer, his twin sons, now aged 14 and
living with their grandmother, had gone on a public campaign to
save their father by distributing leaflets calling on people to
write directly to the president.
