A 46-year-old Indian-origin convicted of abetting drug trafficking in Singapore is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, a media report stated on Tuesday, because the city-state rejected calls by outstanding anti-death penalty campaigners to halt the capital punishment.

Tangaraju Suppiah was sentenced to loss of life on October 9, 2018, for making an attempt to visitors greater than 1 kg of hashish to Singapore.

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He was detained in 2014 for drug consumption and failure to report for a drug check

Tangaraju is scheduled to be hanged on Wednesday, in response to a Channel News Asia report.

Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday strongly reacted to British billionaire Richard Branson’s weblog submit “Why Tangaraju Suppiah doesn’t deserve to die”, which claimed that Suppiah’s conviction didn’t meet requirements and that “Singapore may be about to kill an innocent man”.

The ministry stated Branson’s views on a Singaporean on loss of life row confirmed “disrespect” for the nation’s judges and felony justice system.

Apart from Branson, statements had been additionally issued by the Delegation of the European Union to Singapore and Australian MP Graham Perrett.

The EU assertion, collectively issued on Monday with the diplomatic missions of EU member states, Norway and Switzerland in Singapore, known as on authorities to halt Tangaraju’s execution and commute his sentence to a non-capital sentence.

Perrett had expressed his views in a Facebook submit final Thursday, saying he was “concerned that the planned execution of Tangaraju violates international law standards”, in response to the report.

The MHA, responding to the billionaire’s submit, stated that his claims had been “patently untrue” and that it was “regrettable that Branson, in wanting to argue his ( Tangaraju’s) case, should resort to purporting to know more about the case than Singapore’s Courts, which had examined the case thoroughly and comprehensively over a period of more than three years.”

“Tangaraju’s defence was that he was not the person communicating with the two others involved in the case. However, the High Court found Tangaraju’s evidence unbelievable and found that he was communicating with the two others and was coordinating the delivery and receipt of cannabis to himself through the two others,” the ministry stated.

It stated that opposite to Branson’s suggestion that Tangaraju was “actually not anywhere near” medicine on the time of his arrest, the proof clearly confirmed that he was coordinating the supply of medication for trafficking.

“Tangaraju was involved in a case with two others, where his phone numbers were used to communicate with the two others involved in the delivery of the cannabis,” the MHA stated, including that the High Court additionally discovered that Tangaraju had the intention to visitors the hashish.

The ministry reiterated Singapore’s “zero-tolerance” stance and “multi-pronged approach” to tackling drug abuse, which incorporates rehabilitation programmes.

“The death penalty is an essential component of Singapore’s criminal justice system and has been effective in keeping Singapore safe and secure,” stated the MHA, including that it’s utilized “judiciously with stringent safeguards”.

Last September, Law and Home Affairs Minister Okay Shanmugam stated Singapore’s coverage of getting the loss of life penalty for drug trafficking is within the curiosity of Singaporeans.

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Citing a survey by the ministry which confirmed that almost 87 per cent of Singaporeans assist the loss of life penalty, Shanmugam stated, “So, there isn’t quite a lot of argument inside Singapore. It’s some individuals who maintain repeating the factors.” He added that Singapore just isn’t alone in capital punishment legal guidelines. The loss of life penalty can also be in place on the planet’s three largest nations – China, India and the United States.