Statement in response to media queries

1. The capital sentence of death imposed on Nazeri Bin Lajim (“Nazeri”) is scheduled to be carried out on 22 July 2022.

2. Nazeri, a 64-year-old Singaporean, was convicted of possessing not less than 33.89 grammes of diamorphine, or pure heroin, for the purpose of trafficking. 33.89 grammes of heroin is sufficient to feed the addiction of about 400 abusers for a week.

3. Nazeri was accorded full due process under the law. His petitions to the President for clemency were unsuccessful.

a. Nazeri was sentenced to capital punishment on 8 August 2017. He appealed against his conviction and sentence, and the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on 4 July 2018.

b. On 9 March 2021, Nazeri filed an application for a review of the Court of Appeal’s earlier decision on his conviction and sentence. The Court of Appeal dismissed the application on 20 April 2021 and found that there was clearly no miscarriage of justice in the Court of Appeal’s earlier decision.

c. Nazeri was also one of 17 prisoners awaiting capital punishment who filed an application on 13 August 2021 alleging discrimination against them as persons of Malay ethnicity when prosecuting them for capital drug offences. The application was heard by the High Court and dismissed on 2 December 2021. The High Court also found that the application was an abuse of process of the court.

4. Since Nazeri was notified of the scheduled execution, he had filed an application on 19 July 2022. The application was dismissed by the High Court on 20 July 2022. Nazeri subsequently filed an appeal and it was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 21 July 2022.

5. The capital punishment is used only for the most serious crimes, such as the trafficking of significant quantities of drugs, which cause very serious harm, not just to individual drug abusers, but also to their families and the wider society. Capital punishment is part of Singapore’s comprehensive harm prevention strategy that targets both drug demand and supply.

CENTRAL NARCOTICS BUREAU

21 JULY 2022