Breaking News:
TOC has learned that the Attorney-General has filed an application to quash the stay of execution which the High Court granted to Yong Vui Kong on 2 December. The AG’s application will be heard on Tuesday, 8 Dec. DPP Jaswant Singh says the judge had no jurisdiction to hear the Criminal Motion on 2 Dec and that “the order of a stay of execution was wrong in law”. (You can join the Facebook group in support of Vui Kong’s lawyer, M Ravi, here.)
Koh Yi Na
Yong Vui Kong, a Malaysian who was due to hang this Friday for drug trafficking, has been granted a stay of execution.
At a High Court hearing today, Justice Woo Bih Li allowed the postponement of the 21-year-old’s execution, pending a hearing before the Court of Appeal to be held next Tuesday.
Yong had received the death sentence last November, after being found guilty of trafficking 47g of heroin in June 2007. He was 19 years old at the time of arrest.
His execution was scheduled to be carried out this Friday after his petition for clemency was rejected by the President on November 20.
Representing Yong, Mr M Ravi of LF Violet Netto, argued that executing Yong before his appeal was heard violated his constitutional rights. The Court of Appeal have yet to hear Yong’s case, as it was withdrawn by his previous counsel, who had been assigned by the State.
As the Court of Appeal is currently on vacation and unable to convene (see note below), Mr Ravi asked the High Court to grant a stay of execution for Yong, until his application for an extension of time and a full appeal can be heard.
After hearing arguments presented by both the defence and the prosecution, Justice Woo accepted Mr Ravi’s request.
The news came as a relief to two of Yong’s elder brothers who were present at the hearing. His mother, elder sister and brother, and a cousin arrived from Sabah today, but were not in time to attend today’s court session. They met Yong at the Changi Prison Link Centre later in afternoon.
Yong’s older brother, Yun Leong, told The Online Citizen that his mother had been unaware of Yong’s conviction and death sentence.
The 24-year-old, who currently works in Singapore, said in Mandarin: “We’ve kept this from her for almost three years. Because his execution date is coming soon, we felt that she needed to know.”
“My sister broke the news to her yesterday, but she only said that Vui Kong ran into trouble and is in jail in Singapore.
“My mother doesn’t know that he was involved in drug trafficking and had received a death sentence, and Vui Kong wanted to tell her himself,” he added.
Throughout most of the hearing, Yong sat with his head bowed, speaking only occasionally to his interpreter and the police officers who accompanied him. He showed little emotion and only nodded when the interpreter explained the judge’s decision to him. But he broke down after the judge granted a stay of execution.
According to Yun Leong, Yong’s conversion to Buddhism whilst in prison helped him to come to terms with his sentence. He had earlier instructed his state-assigned lawyer to withdraw his appeal because he “knew he was guilty and wanted to get it over with”.
He later applied for a stay of execution in order to allow himself the time to speak to his mother for the last time, and for his final appeal to be heard by the Court of Appeal.
Yong, sixth of seven children, was raised in Sandakan, Sabah. His parents divorced when he was three, leaving his mother to raise him. She worked as a dishwasher during his childhood, while the family lived with his paternal grandfather in his palm oil estate.
As a child, he was made to work in the estate, and was frequently abused by his grandfather. After turning 10, he began taking on odd jobs to supplement his family’s income. Unable to cope with the demands of education and work, he dropped out of school two years later.
At 15, he left for Kota Kinabalu to work for two months, where he saved up for a plane ticket to Kuala Lumpur. There, he worked as an apprentice cook at a Chinese restaurant, where he was often underpaid and discriminated against due to his being from Sabah.
According to his brother, Yong then got involved with friends in secret societies, and fell under the influence of drug syndicates who used him as a drug mule to transport illegal substances across the border to Singapore.
Yun Leong added that Yong had been aware that the packages he received contained drugs, but he was assured by his superiors that these drugs were of an insufficient quantity to warrant the death penalty.
On June 10, 2007, Yong flew back to Sabah from Johor to celebrate his mother’s birthday. Two days later, he was arrested near the Meritus Mandarin Hotel in Singapore.
According to Yong’s petition for clemency that was submitted to the President, the trial judge, Justice Choo Han Teck, had called both the defence and prosecution into chambers before the commencement of the trial and noted Yong’s relatively young age at the time of the offence.
Justice Choo then asked the Prosecution to consider reducing the capital charge to a non-capital one. The prosecution declined.
Yong thus received a mandatory death penalty upon his conviction for trafficking heroin under the Misuse of Drugs Act.
Note: M Ravi told the judge he had been told this by the registrar but the DPP claimed instead that the registrar had told him the Court of Appeal is avalaible. It is thus unclear if the judges are indeed on vacation. However, the one-week stay of execution perhaps confirms that they are.
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Picture from Yawning Bread: Another teenager caught, set to hang
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149) Zefly (aka Joshua Chiang) on December 4th, 2009 3.32 pm
You don’t ‘mind’ having videos of hanging, but worry about the ‘effect’ it will have.
You are probably be reading it wrong or I wasn’t clear enough.
I was NOT worried about the effect, it’s more like I am worried about the LACK of effect that it will have (courtesy to the amount of violence we already have on TV). i.e Visual cues don’t cut it anymore.
well… maybe it will for the desperate who may not have access to TV. Then you’d have to contend with how you are going to not let the children see it though.
but it will scare the children if we make it too graphic…. um yah, and we have pictures of dead fetuses on cigarette packs.
Please tell me you understand the difference between a TV where everyone can see, and a printed graphic on a box that only a person who have bought it can see clearly (very hard to see from afar if it is on the shelf).
The deterrence effect will simply have to come from mainstream newspapers of their respective countries when they carry the news, hopefully BEFORE they take on the ‘job’. As it is, I would imagine (though I really don’t know) we are already quite well known for it.
If they are already at our doorstep (customs), I do not think just having a TV will make them have a change of heart.
At the very least, I remember that on planes they clearly say that Drug is a death penalty before you alight.
Here are some more stats. Of course, take it with a pinch of salt.. though I shouldn’t have to tell you this. Personally, I only look at the figures, and skipped the commentary.
http://www.cnb.gov.sg/medialibrary/index.asp
The one in 2006 is the best as it has plotted a line graph over the years. The 2007 reports onwards only compared with previous year.
If according to the UN published report that we were ‘good’ in 2001, then going by the chart, it seems we have improved.
Lobo,
From your last two posts, it sends a clear message that scholars (Spore scholars) should never be in govt.
In post 154, what language or languages is the warning in plane delivered in? Changi is an international airport, we have all nationalities coming including Polish who don’t speak a word of English, Malay, Mandarin or Tamil. I know Yong is not a Polish but I also cannot assume that a Chinese Malaysian can understand all those languages because he could be illiterate and only comprehends dialects. What about a deaf person?
In post 155, if figures are all you look at, go tell all the police not record drug related crimes in SG and tell the doctors to find other reasons for death due to drug abuse.
You seem to be reduced to a ROBOT! Grow a brain and a heart!
All I have is a simple question, if the authorities are so bent on keeping singapore safe from drugs, they are willing execute young men, should not the police have put some effort and used the mule to go undercover, to trap the main supplier?
If you seriously want to stop drugs, you can’t just cut off a finger, you need to chop off the head!
1year has gone by and they have not caught the headman
By killing their best lead the cops have effectively helped the drug dealer to deal another day.
so who is a bigger contributer to drug trafficking-the mule or the authorities? no wonder I always feel confused living on this Island.
156) No Scholar on December 4th, 2009 5.46 pm
Well, I have never been on a plane that is of polish origin so I can’t say what language they would broadcast in. Frankly I would be surprised if they don’t know any English because they have to fill in a red/white immigration form (like those we have to fill when we go malaysia) which I think is in English.
… and btw, what things in my post led you to conclude that I am a scholar, if that is indeed what you are implying?
In post 155, if figures are all you look at, go tell all the police not record drug related crimes in SG and tell the doctors to find other reasons for death due to drug abuse.
Well, I hate to embarrass you… but you need to see the report before you comment. It’s the number of drug abuse (people who take drugs) case, not drug related crimes…..While I know police don’t record some ‘crimes’ especially when it doesn’t involve a civil servant, I failed to see what relevance it has to that figure.
have skimmed through the charts (neccessary so that I ‘read’ as little as the text as poosible), I also do not see the number of deaths from drug abuse, only the breakdown of how many percent consume what type of drug.
Basically, I think you are the robot which is rehashing some sentence/para, and just replacing some of the terms.
157) dazed and confused on December 4th, 2009 8.10 pm
All I have is a simple question, if the authorities are so bent on keeping singapore safe from drugs, they are willing execute young men, should not the police have put some effort and used the mule to go undercover, to trap the main supplier?
I tot it has been mentioned umpteen times…. the answer to your simple question is Jurisdiction. Mules by definition carry drugs from OUTSIDE the country into ours. i.e Supplier is OUTSIDE the country. So how to catch? Probably only Interpol have jurisdiction.
Lobo
What Polish plane are you talking about? I have been in an SIA flight next to a Polish who does not understand a word of English. She asked me to help her fill in her immigration form. She passed me a piece of paper containing all the necessary data, thats the address of residence etc.
Wow, thanks for not embarassing me. Didn’t know all drug abusers report to the authorities that they take drugs. I mean other than that how do the authorities know who or how many are abusing drugs? Now do you see why I pointed to the number of drug related crimes (convicted hence reported) or hospital records.
No, I did not think that you are a scholar. I just think that you behave like one (of Spore scholars).
here’s a starting point if you want to know about the effectiveness of drugs policy on the incidence of drug (ab)use:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/07/bad-science-nott-drugs
i personally view the ending of someone’s life as pretty damn serious, and if the evidence of the effectiveness of the death penalty is inconclusive either way, then i put it to you that the only responsible and reasonable thing to do is to stop doing it until you know that it actually works.
“it is a tenet of evidence-based policy that if you discover a gap, you commission work to fill it.”
oh yeah, the link points to the same column in the guardian by ben goldacre as the one on the ‘TOC press muse – cynical studies’ column by spiegel, in case anyone’s wondering.
Let this matter send a chill down the spine and a message to the people. We have a system that desperately needs change. Otherwise we will have more “Yong Vui Kong’s” to be executed as decoys for the drug lords. Meanwhile the haul that successfully got through into the country continues to harm your loved ones.
This is a serious matter and it depends on every single one of you to do the right thing, not for Yong Vui Kong’s sake (if you do not want to) but for your love ones and fellow country men and women.
The authorities can extract important info from Yong. Who is the supplier? Where does he operate? Who else are involved? Use them to carry out investigations. If or when the supplier is captured, Yong Vui Kong is a key witness. How can they destroy forever this key witness?
151) lobo76
Great, I think the Detroit Big 3, ML, FM and gangs also have this mentality, don’t change when nothing seems to be wrong, and look where it brought them….
Likewise lobo, although DA/DT are relatively low right now, partly due to capital punishment…for the sake of been more humane, the death penalty could be change to a very heavy imprisonment penalty, for less severe case. And monitor for a short period. If the DA/DT rise up, then drastic action could be reinstall and that time round, nobody can say anything about the use of capital punishment as a deterrence….although i know, someone will say ” by the time it rise up, it will be too late” but at least a chance was given..
You want to deal with these cunning evil people (drug suppliers), you have to double-cross them. Give them back a taste of their own medicine. They use people like Yong to go against you, you use Yong to go against them. Otherwise what is there to stop them? If there is such action, suppliers might even turn down easily rewardable, simple traffickers because if caught, they will be hunted down. Let the suppliers gamble with their own lives. This will be a more effective deterrent.
150) Zefly (aka Joshua Chiang)
I can’t find fault…deterrence need to be shown and let its impact be felt…
“So what ‘deterence’ is it, you tell me. Oooooo, but it will scare the children if we make it too graphic…. um yah, and we have pictures of dead fetuses on cigarette packs.”
Actually, isn’t deterrence meant to create fear…to warn a person off that something bad will happen if they try something funny? somehow, it will be good to let the children know that fear…and through that fear instilled, hopefully it will deter them from doing stupid stufff
So imagine if we have William Wallace style of public execution, now, that will surely serve as a deterrence message, right? And perhaps Lobo can suggest displaying the quartered remains, so that mules will have second thought about bringing that shipment…a barbaric, but should be effective way right?
however, does it work? hang drawn and quartered is a barbaric punishment meant for the highest treason act…and in fact were carried out publicly and remains were displayed at crossroad….but regicide still occur even though people know that they will really suffer a nasty death
“I can’t find fault…deterrence need to be shown”
- Of course, otherwise what is a deterrent?
No one here has yet asked a key question. Where is the drugs going to? Who is Yong meeting up with. Ok, it is difficult to track the supplier outside Spore but surely Yong is trafficking the drug to someone within Spore. Who is this? Obviously this person sells it on and s/he is as harmful if not more than Yong. Why is s/he let off or not pursued?
Why does the police not let Yong meet up with the recipient and nap him or her too? Quite obviously, the recipient is a known trader in Spore who peddles the drugs to locals, the end users. Shouldn’t our authorities track them down?
If Spore cannot work with overseas police to catch criminals, go learn a thing or two with US who is busy working with international network to stop terrorists.
Lobo, to be honest, I don’t accept however little our number of drug abusers are. One abuser and life destroyed is one too many. Lets do what is right and not what appears to be right by comparison.
He have a very hard yound life…Anything would happened to a fragile human being. Money is the main culprit. In this case innocent life are wasted, but let not forget that the main CULPRIT is still at large waiting for the next bait.
Let pray to GOD for the best. Amen.
Yamamoto,
I think the point I’m trying to make is… we make death penalty into law, and yet, despite the gravity of taking away one life, we don’t seem to be making the corresponding effort to really really make sure people get the message.
All we get are excuses.
That really punctures the whole ‘deterrence’ as a message angle, and show the double standards of the punishment system.
Wa Wa Wa.
I sell life destroying merchandise and I want to play up my “tragic” circumstances to hope I’d avoid doing the Irish tap dance now that I got caught
Hang the drug mule and be done with. At the least give him the dignity of a death to atone whatever little for all the lives he had ruined.
Pull the lever, we got more drug peddling scum on the list.
The argument here is an effective and justified penatly, without neglection for human right or value. Guilty? Yes of cos, but given the death sentence, does it effectively fufil your so called ‘Atonement’… the moment this life is sent to the gallows, there is no talk of atonement or hope for change, everything just ends there.
If atonement was a serious consideration, wouldn’t sparing him from death penatly and long-term imprisonment / rehab be more effective? At least there is a chance of him repenting and contributing to society in any way.
164) Yamamoto on December 4th, 2009 9.17 pm
…the death penalty could be change to a very heavy imprisonment penalty, for less severe case. And monitor for a short period. If the DA/DT rise up,
You realised you are experimenting with people’s lives here?
lobo @175
If you care so much for peoples lives, what about the drug suppliers and the agents peddling them on the street? Do you not call for investigations on them? You should also be asking the authorities to spend on anti-drugs campaign instead of courtesy campaign, go into the schools and tell children about the destruction of drugs, better still make the govt include this in the curriculum. There are so many things the govt can do, not just executing mules.
One more thing, there should be prominent signs reminding immigrants of the drugs law and death sentence, at embarkation. The airport security should allow immigrants to declare the illegal drugs if they carry them to avoid the death sentence. Those who declare are spared but not allowed entry into Spore and banned, at the same time, they should be handed over back to their countries’ authorities to deal with them. Afterall, Spore is not interested to investigate further and cannot arrest anyone overseas, so what is the point of detaining them. The law should not be set up as a trap to execute people, it is there to safeguard drugs entering the country.
JayF @170
Yong Viu Kong was not caught SELLING the drugs. He was caught in posession of them. Who he is bringing the stuff to, we do not know. This 19 yr old is not a rich young man, he did not have the money to own the drugs for sales. Yes, he works or carries the drugs for someone. Who this someone is, we do not know. The authorities do not seem interested either.
For the potential harm he might have done in aiding the smuggling of the drugs, he should be given a jail sentence. Many of us take his background into consideration when arguing against his execution, I think it is not Yong himself who is using it to escape punishment.
The drug peddling scums make use of people like Yong to stake their lives. Yong was certainly easy target for them, and the drug law in SG is certainly easy loophole for the drug peddling scums. The scums themselves will never do the trafficking themselves and never get into trouble with this law.
The law is wrong, very wrong and needs to be changed. Notice I have not even argued for or against capital punishment yet.
JayF, I personally cannot bring myself to hate Yong, although I hate drug abuse. I have seen lives damaged by drugs but somehow there is something in Yong that I cannot bring myself to condemn him. I cannot explain it myself but there is something there shouting this boy deserve another chance. I have just wept (literally) when I read that he knelt down to his mum and bowed to her 3 times (by Rachel Zeng). My eyes are welling up again as I write. If a person has feelings, he has hope. It is a beautiful relationship between him and his mum which will be a good basis for him to start a new life after his jail sentence if he is given another chance. It is too cruel to take away this young life and from his mum, both of whom had never had it easy from Yong’s early days.
JafF, I am personally sad for you that you do not feel anything for a young human life.
First off I am against the death penalty for drug trafficking, when there is a good chance of rehabilitation and imprisonment is a far more apt punishment.
However the problem here is that Yong is a foreigner; I am not sure the Singaporean taxpayer should pay for his rehabilitation. I can imagine the hordes of foreigners over-flooding the local jails especially in land scarce Singapore.
If Singapore has extradition treaties with other countries, it could ship them back to their home country to serve out their sentence.
176) Discern on December 6th, 2009 3.35 am
If you care so much for peoples lives, what about the drug suppliers and the agents peddling them on the street?
Suppliers already mentioned ad nauseum. They are OUTSIDE the country. Do you want us to invade another country? or maybe get our NS boys to Afghan to burn poppy fields?
Agents peddling on the streeting, I do not know since I am neither CNB nor there was much news. The only ‘news’ is on CNB website which may not be the most objective. Unfortunately, since it is the ONLY news I can find…
Anyway, go to the website yourself and decide for yourself if they are indeed doing nothing or too little.
http://www.cnb.gov.sg/Newsroom/index.asp?name=TmV3c3Jvb20gLSBPcGVyYXRpb25z&year=MjAwOQ&type=Q3VycmVudA&view=Q3VycmVudA
If you care so much for peoples lives,
I care for the quality of lives, not just life itself. If courtesy campaign improves quality of life, then I am all for it . Do note that I do not think the govt can carry off any campaign well enough for it to mean anything… regardless of anti-drug or courtesy. The only one that worked (too well) is the stop at 2 I guess.
lobo
I thought Mas Selamat was caught OUTSIDE the country. Did we need to attack other country to pursue him?
We can’t even find Yong’s boss or do anything with him, you want to talk about burning poppy fields. So its either Yong dead or burn poppy fields. No one or syndicates are in between.
I am talking about the agent that Yong is expected to meet up with to pass the ‘gift’ over, not random agents. If they can’t be bothered to track just this lead, don’t even talk about looking for random agents.
Yong thought that drugs were like cigarettes. If he had not had to give up on education, if the Malaysian schools talk about drugs in their schools, Yong could have been aware of the damages drugs can cause. If you really think that courtesy campaign can be more important in improving the quality of life, I wish you good luck in finding quality of life.
Eh, I’m leaving Singapore soon which is why I stopped reading local news. Was Mas Salamat caught by Singapore police in a foreign jurisdiction?
Lobo76,
Extraterritorial legislation works fine for drug interdiction without sending in soldiers to burn poppy fields. Think of the DEA concept for anti-drug ops.
I sat through anxiously and earnestly the entire appeal hearing this morning (8 Dec 2009) with reknown criminal lawyer Mr. Jason Peter Dendroff (who had been the defence counsel for Yong during the initial trial) seated on my left beside me. The appeal this morning at Court 9A was presided by his Lordship Chief Justice Chan, Justices of Appeal Andrew Phang and V K Rajah with surprisingly lots of SMU law students and some learned Assistant Registrars present. The atmosphere was indeed tense where it is the first time I saw armed Prison Officers holding stirling and high-power riffles milling around. Can’t blame them due to high degree of security – we are dealing with a condemned prisoner.
During the entire arguments and exchanges I noticed one thing for sure and that was brilliant questions and arguments put forth by the Justices directed to both counsel and public prosecutor.
Guess Yong must be thanking and kowtowing his God this evening at Changi Prison for His grace when the appeal to stay execution and also to file appeal was granted when pronouncement was made exactly at 11.39 am Singapore time 8th December 2009 at the relief of Yong’s family members (seated on the extreme first row on my left of the Court) after the three justices deliberated for 39 minutes when the court was adjourned at 10.55 am after both defence and prosecution presented their arguments substantiated with authorities (both UK and Malaysia cited) and past proceedings.
This morning’s judgment certainly reflects the globally acclaimed high standards of Singapore’s criminal justice system and due processes in Singapore. It is so exceedingly evidential that the Court of Appeal is empowered to decide on the case before the three justices this morning to grant a stay of execution and also to allow an appeal after the former appeal was withdrawn due to misguided religious belief.
Guess every Singaporean is also as lucky as Yong as I witnessed the delivery of judgment. Defence Counsel Mr. M Ravi surely did a fantastic and commendable job.
I learnt what finality and merits of appeal were all about this morning. This hinges what layman call ‘life and death’.
Finally wondering why our President of the Criminal Law Society was not present this morning when I was ‘craning’ my neck for him.
Hurrah! Mr. Ravi, you did a great job!!! The Yong family must be kissing your hands (and feet as well) now for the next three months at least!
By NOT GOD
May the Cosmic Mother saves Vui Kong..
JAI MAHA KALI !
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