2005: Shanmugam Murugesu, for the chronic

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On this date in 2005, Singapore hanged a 34-year-old for pot.

Shanmugam Murugesu, an ethnically Tamil Singaporean, was nabbed carrying a kilo of marijuana.

Your basic “wtf drug war” case study, this divorced father actually represented Singapore at international watersports competitions and otherwise led a productive, non-criminal life.

The city-state: a mite crazy over drugs. (And over the death penalty.) Mere mary jane is among the substances that can get you a death sentence there — carrying 500 grams or more is supposed to trigger automatic execution.

While awaiting that fate, Shanmugam befriended the young Australian drug mule and “simple soul” Van Tuong Nguyen, who was bound to follow in his footsteps; Shanmugam’s last appeal to his lawyer was “to save Nguyen Tuong Van’s life at all costs.”

(No luck, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Shanmugam Murugesu’s hanging was also notable as a civic event in Singapore for the landmark public protest (organized in large measure by the hanged man’s own family) it generated — a rarity for that “Disneyland with the death penalty”.

Public Forum on Death Penalty and Campaign for Shanmugam Murugesu from Jacob George on Vimeo.

On this day..

Possibly related executions:

3 thoughts on “2005: Shanmugam Murugesu, for the chronic”

  2. This is crazy. Pity he didn’t know anybody people in high places. That’s how the elite in Singapore can sniff coke without a problem.

  3. Usually I laugh when I read about criminals getting fried, but shit, a kilo of weed gets you the death penalty?

    Still, pretty fucking stupid of Einstein there to try to haul a kilogram of probably the most pungent drug this side of jenkem through customs in a city state notorious for its absurdly harsh laws?

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