Singapore – A Malaysian who delivered more than 900g of a powdery substance into Singapore using his motorcycle was given the death penalty for drug trafficking.
It was reported that the accused, Kishor Kumar Raguan, 41, brought in 36.05g worth of heroin among the four bundles in the bag he delivered.
Under Singapore law, the death penalty is given if the amount of heroin trafficked is more than 15g.
Meanwhile, the recipient, Singaporean Pung Ah Kiang, 61, was sentenced to life imprisonment for possessing the drugs for the purpose of trafficking, reported The Straits Times.
According to the written grounds released on Friday (Feb 4), both Kishor and Pung were aware that the bundles contained heroin.
High Court Justice Audrey Lim rejected Kishor’s defence that he believed the bag contained “stones.”
Justice Lim discovered that Kishor was told the bag contained “kallu” which he knew was a street name for heroin.
Pung’s claim that he did not know the bag’s contents and was only keeping it temporarily for his brother-in-law was also rejected by Justice Lim.
Pung said he received items like dog food, cat food, Chinese medicine and biscuits through intermediaries between 2014 and 2016 from his brother-in-law, which his friends would later collect.
Justice Lim sentenced Pung to a life sentence as he has substantively helped the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) in disrupting drug trafficking activities in the past.
“As the prosecution did not issue Kishor with a certificate of substantive assistance… I passed the mandatory death sentence on him,” said Justice Lim.
Not the first time
Kishor had also brought bundles of drugs into Singapore on July 29, 2016, and delivered them to Pung near his Paya Lebar condominium.
Pung was later arrested by CNB officers who found more drugs in his residence. Kishor’s DNA was identified on the bundles delivered to Pung.
The prosecution said that Kishor knew what the bundles contained and was instructed to collect S$6,000 from Pung.
Kishor was no stranger to illegal drugs, acting as a middleman for drug transactions, said the prosecution.
On the latest incident, Kishor said he was promised RM500 (S$160) for the delivery.
As he was told the item was “like a stone,” Kishor claimed he thought they were decorative stones or pebbles and did not probe further.
He also did not recognize the “brown coloured things” inside when he removed the black tape of the bundles.
Kishor claimed that Pung handed him a white envelope upon delivery, noting he also did not know what was inside the envelope.
Pung denied the voluntariness and accuracy of seven of Kishor’s statements, reported ST.
Pung added that the investigation officer promised to help him if Pung used the words “bai fen” (meaning white powder in Mandarin and a street name for heroin) or “du pin” (illegal drugs in Mandarin) in his statements.
“Pung could not maintain a consistent story about how portions of the statements came to be,” said the judge.
In Singapore, the death penalty is applicable only for a very limited number of offences involving the most serious forms of harm to victims and society, such as intentional murder and trafficking of significant quantities of drugs, said the Ministry of Home Affairs on its website.
The government considers the seriousness of the offence, the frequency of the offence and the need for a very high degree of deterrence in deciding whether to provide the death penalty on a particular offence.
MHA used drug trafficking as an example, noting that the threshold amount of 15g of pure heroin (diamorphine) is equivalent to 1,250 straws of heroin, which can feed the addiction of 180 drug abusers for a week./TISG
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