Once a Jolly Hangman (28 page)

After the 13-day trial in the High Court ended on 22 December 2005, Tochi was found guilty and sentenced to death. Marshall's' real name turned out to be Okele Nelson Malachy and his true nationality was never determined. He was described as a stateless African who had
arrived in Singapore using a forged passport. He was also sentenced to death for trafficking the same 727.02 grams of diamorphine (or heroin)
into Singapore even though he never took possession of the capsules. M. Ravi, a human rights activist and Tochis second lawyer, fought a losing battle in a frantic bid to save him. He appealed against the sentence and asked for a retrial. This was denied. Then he made a desperate plea for clemency from President S.R. Nathan. 'It is disturbing to note', Ravi told me after Tochi was hanged, 'that the learned trial judge himself raised reasonable doubts as to his guilt. Yet he proceeded to convict both men and sentenced them to death'. Against Tochi the trial judge Kan Ting Chiu made the following finding at paragraph 42 of his judgement: "There was no direct evidence that he knew the capsules contained diamorphine. There was nothing to suggest that Smith had told him they contained diamorphine, or that he had found that out of his own'. Against Malachy, he said: 'Although there was no direct evidence that the accused knew that the capsules contained drugs, and there is no presumption of such knowledge raised against him'.

Ravi maintains that criminal laws of Singapore are unjust.

They are completely weighted against the accused. For example, confession alone can be relied upon in sentencing a person to death. Also there is no right to pre-trial discovery on accused statements or admissions. It is almost impossible to rebut the presumption where the burden is reversed on the accused to prove his innocence. Further, an accused person can be convicted solely on the uncorroborated and unsupported evidence of a co-accused. The courts here have moreover declared they have no jurisdiction or powers to reopen a case even if there is fresh evidence adduced before execution. In one case, which I argued on the eve of the execution asking for a retrial, the then Chief Justice who presided over the case maintained that 'an innocent man can be hanged in Singapore due to procedural matters. Singapore practices the mandatory death penalty in that it takes away the discretionary powers from the judges in precluding them from looking into extenuating and particular circumstances of the individual cases. Once the accused is convicted of trafficking, e.g. 15 grams of heroin, the death sentence is mandated.

The night before Tochi and Malachy were hanged, I joined a candlelight vigil outside Changi Prison which was attended by barely a dozen
Singaporeans, testament to the secrecy the government maintains At the vigil prominent Singapore-based art critic Lee Weng Choy, said he disagreed with Singapore's mandatory death sentence, which he said takes away the discretionary power of the judiciary. 'I also disagree with its justification as a deterrent. The reality is that drug trafficking has not been reduced to zero, neither has drug use', he said. The execution of Tochi was carried out despite an appeal by Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo, who asked Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to commute the death sentence. Lee maintained that Tochi had committed a serious offence under Singapore law and had exhausted all legal options. 'We did not take the decision lightly', Lee wrote in a letter. 'I realise that Mr Tochi's family will find Singapore's position difficult to accept, but we have a duty to safeguard the interests of Singaporeans, and protect the many lives that would otherwise be ruined by the drug syndicates'.

Ravi believes African nationals in particular caught trafficking drugs in Asia get different treatment. He cited a spate of executions which had largely gone unnoticed.
'German national Julia Bohl who was convicted for possession and was a known sophisticated trafficker in Singapore escaped the gallows. Mike McCrea, a Briton, had two murder charges against him reduced to culpable homicide even before the trial began. It's clear', he said, 'that Africans are treated in a discriminatory manner and their cases rarely get the attention of the international or local media. Many young African males are lured to Asia by attractive sports and athletic deals but end up being exploited as petty drug traffickers'.

Ravi said the mandatory death sentence in Singapore was declared unlawful by the United Nations in November 2005. Ravi flew to Lagos to lend his assistance to Nigeria and South Africa to refer the matter to the International Court of Justice and to argue the case. He also lobbied international organisations like the American Bar Association, Amnesty International, the Australian Coalition against Death Penalty and carried his campaign across Europe to highlight this grave situation. Ravi vows that he will spend the rest of his life, if necessary, to abolish the mandatory death sentence in Singapore if not the death penalty in totality. The campaigners outside Changi Prison were obliged to gather in groups of no more than four otherwise they would have been arrested for 'unlawful assembly'. Tochi's red football jersey, which was given to Ravi by Tochi as a farewell present, was hung on the prison fence with many candles lit around it. As the time of the
hanging approached, many people gathered outside prison sat down quietly, bowed their heads and to say their silent goodbyes to the young Nigerian. "There was no need to kill him', said Ravi angrily. 'Even if he had some idea that what he was doing was wrong, was it worth snuffing out such a promising young life?'

At dawn on Friday 26 January 2007 these two African men who had never met before their arrests in the airport transit lounge were hanged simultaneously in Changi Prison. The executions received scant attention in the local and world media. The news was announced in a brief statement by assistant superintendent at Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau. Tochi's family had not travelled to Singapore to see him because they could not afford the journey, according to an official at the Nigerian embassy. A lawyer representing the family flew to Singapore hoping to pass on personal messages of love from his parents and other family members but even he was denied permission to see Tochi before he was hanged.

I have written very little about Nelson Malachy, the man Tochi was destined to meet at a table in the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Tochi knew him only as 'Marshall' and he had never heard of him until he arrived in Singapore from Dubai courtesy of Smith, an equally mysterious figure the naive Tochi met by chance, or so it appears, during a service one Sunday afternoon in St Andrew's Church, Islamabad. While investigating all these characters I began wondering who 'Mr Smith' really was. And did he matter to the Central Narcotics Bureau who prosecuted Tochi and Malachy on behalf of the Singapore government? And did Malachy matter to the judge who heard his trial and sentenced him to death? According to court records Malachy was a stateless person, sometimes described as a South African. But there was no one in the court to speak up for him. No diplomat from the High Commission, no one from his family. As far as everyone was concerned he did not have one. Malachy was defenceless in his anonymity. He was nobody. Just another black man. He did not exist. And he, too, was easy meat for
Singapore's killing machine. But more importantly, there was no campaigning newspaper in Singapore carefully following the trials of these men which might have sounded the alarm bells that yet another miscarriage of justice might be taking place, especially in the case of Amara Tochi, who might well have turned out to become a world famous football star.

21

A Woman of No Importance

With Singapore's much-vaunted recovery programme for drug addicts and Changi Prison's proud motto 'Captains of Lives: Rehab, Renew, Restart' one would have thought 37 year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen would have been in safe, caring hands. As a serious heroin addict, she would definitely have qualified for special treatment in a bid to return her to normality. Yen May, a Singaporean, was a victim of a broken home who could not handle her parents divorce and her mother's subsequent wayward life of fleeting affairs with many men. During her teen years, she dreamed one day of finding a good man to marry and raise a family. Her special wish was to be given away wearing a beautiful white wedding dress by her father. After her parents divorce her life spun out of control. She began using drugs to ease the pain and mixed with the wrong company. As the years passed she found it difficult to hold down a well paying job and then she gravitated to heroin and ice instead of marijuana. As so often happens her circle of friends was targeted by the narcotics police after a tip-off and an undercover agent joined in, carefully taking note of what she and everyone was doing. To fund her habit and unable to find regular employment she began trafficking the drug.

She was charged with trafficking in not less than 30.16 grams of diamorphine, or heroin, on 8 May 2002. A team of officers of the CNB was instructed to look for her near a taxi stand at Block 179 Toa Payoh Central. They saw her arrive in a taxi which stopped a short distance from the taxi stand. 'She alighted', one of the officers recorded, 'and brought a black sling bag to the boot of the taxi and closed the boot.

She then went to meet a male Chinese near the taxi stand while the taxi remained where it had stopped'. The officers moved in and arrested Yen May, the man and the driver of the taxi. It was obvious the officers knew what they were doing. The boot of the taxi was opened in her presence. Once of the officers, Senior Staff Sergeant Tan Yian Chye saw the sling bag and questioned her in Hokkien. The English translation of the exchange, according to court records, reads: 'Q: This bag, does it belong to you? A: Accused nods her head. Q: What is inside the bag? A: Inside the bag contained more than 30 packets of heroin'. Later, still at the scene of the bust, another officer, Station Inspector Ronnie See Su Khoon, arrived to take over the investigation. His recorded statement reads: 'Q: This black colour bag belongs to whom? A: It's mine. Q. What is inside? A: Heroin. Q: What are this heroin meant for? A: Consume. Q: Whom you obtain the heroin from? Accused shook her head. Q: Do you have anything else to say? Accused shook her head'. She was taken to CNB headquarters at the Police Cantonment Complex and charged with trafficking in the 120 sachets of diamorphine. Woman Inspector Neo Ling Sim recorded her one-line response: 'I did not know there was so much heroin'. Subsequently, according to court records, a series of five investigation statements were recorded from her between 10 May and 20 August 2002. These revealed that on the day of her arrest, a friend 'Tua Kang' telephoned her and arranged
to return to her some cash and a cheque arising from a football bet; she called her drug supplier 'Jack' and ordered a week's supply of 20-30 sachets of heroin and some 'ice' from him, and collected and paid for the drugs at Thomson Place. That was when the police pounced. May Yen said she was 'high' at the time of her arrest and was in a state of fatigue. She also said she was very frightened and at a loss when she realised that there was so much heroin in the bag. She felt that she would not be believed if she said the heroin did not belong to her, and thought that if she admitted that 20-30 sachets belonged to her she would evade the death penalty. She also claimed that when she made those statements 'I did not take heroin for a few days and I felt very lousy'. There was no plea bargaining for her in which the mandatory death penalty is put in temporary suspension while a deal is worked out. She was found guilty as a matter of course. Judge Boo Bih Li said she had not rebutted the presumption under the Misuse of Drugs Act that she was in possession of the heroin for the purpose of trafficking.

Very little was said in court about Yen Mays background and how she came to such a dire end. The Government-controlled media gave very little ink or air time to the case, merely reporting the basic details. No mass media coverage for her, no powerful country or organisation using its muscle to try to prevent yet another judicial hanging of this virtually defenceless young woman - only a court-appointed lawyer. There were no anti-death penalty demonstrations outside the court when the verdict was announced. Yen May didn't stand a chance even in her country and surrounded by millions of fellow citizens who would be too scared, gutless or disinterested to say boo to the system, even if they really knew what goes on under their noses. While the authorities often bend over backwards to avoid hanging anyone if vital economic or strategic interests with foreign powers are involved, this pathetic woman from a broken home died on the gallows with hardly anyone knowing let alone lifting a finger to help her. She was not a foreigner from a country prepared to use its economic muscle to protect her; she was not one of those they do not hang or give impossibly long jail sentences to or thrash with the rattan; she did not come from the higher echelons of society and live in the nicest parts of the city.

It was unfortunate for Yen May that she was born to a poor family in a less salubrious neighborhood - a million miles from the likes of Sentosa, Goodwood Park and Balmoral Park. She needed the money only to fund her habit and was arrested on a dark street trafficking in not less than 30.16 grams of heroin. She and two co-conspirators had been under surveillance. Undercover officers were watching their every move, waiting for the right time to strike. An undercover agent was in the mix providing vital information about their activities, just a mobile phone call away. She was quickly tried, sentenced to death and was hanged soon afterwards with hardly anyone in Singapore knowing anything about her plight. And as ever, there were no campaigning journalists at The Straits Times, The New Paper or Today demanding a better deal for her. No sympathetic commentary from The Straits Times commentator Ken Kwek who, at the time Nguyen was hanged, argued that the mandatory death penalty should be reassessed while not abolishing capital punishment in its entirety. 'Perhaps in the months ahead, when emotions have died down, the mandatory death penalty - meaning its case-by-case, crime-by-crime application - should be reassessed
by lawyers, officials and citizens alike. If that
happens, we should all focus on the specific - how the mandatory death penalty might be removed for certain crimes - rather than fall for the broadbrush rhetoric calling for its complete and unconditional abolition'. Yen May's case was reported only briefly in the local press and there was no official general discussion about the merits of capital punishment or comparisons to the way others, more fortunately placed in society, had been treated. It would have been ideal topic for one of those late evening or Sunday afternoon roundtable television discussions with a variety of ordinary people saying their piece. Or even a debate on whether women should be put to death at all for any type of crime. There was no top-level wheeling and dealing with high- powered lawyers to save her young life - no chance of 'Rehab, Renew, Restart' for her.