Due to considerable assistance in disrupting drug trafficking activities outside Singapore, convicted drug trafficker Cheong Chun Yin will be able to shake off his death sentence.
According to TODAY, Cheong is now eligible for re-sentencing after the Public Prosecutor certified that he had assisted the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) substantively.
Cheong was arrested in 2008 for the possession of 2.7kg of diamorphine, and had been sentenced to death in 2010. His appeals against the High Court’s ruling were rejected repeatedly prior to today’s development.
Before the reformation of a drug law in Singapore, he would not have been successful. The amendments made to the Misuse of Drug Acts in 2012 enacted that judges will have the discretion to sentence a drug trafficker to life imprisonment instead of death, if he had only played the role of a courier, cooperated with the CNB in a substantive way or have a mental disability that impairs his appreciation of the gravity of the act.
Previous rulings ordained death by hanging on drug traffickers found to be carrying illegal substances beyond specific limits.
If Cheong manages to escape death row, he will be the fourth drug trafficker to do so in Singapore. The first case involved 25-year-old Malaysian Yong Vui Kong who was first sentenced to death for possessing more than 15 grams of heroin, but was re-sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Read Also: Drug trafficker re-sentenced to life imprisonment instead of death
Due to considerable assistance in disrupting drug trafficking activities outside Singapore, convicted drug trafficker Cheong Chun Yin will be able to shake off his death sentence.
According to TODAY, Cheong is now eligible for re-sentencing after the Public Prosecutor certified that he had assisted the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) substantively.
Cheong was arrested in 2008 for the possession of 2.7kg of diamorphine, and had been sentenced to death in 2010. His appeals against the High Court’s ruling were rejected repeatedly prior to today’s development.
Before the reformation of a drug law in Singapore, he would not have been successful. The amendments made to the Misuse of Drug Acts in 2012 enacted that judges will have the discretion to sentence a drug trafficker to life imprisonment instead of death, if he had only played the role of a courier, cooperated with the CNB in a substantive way or have a mental disability that impairs his appreciation of the gravity of the act.
Previous rulings ordained death by hanging on drug traffickers found to be carrying illegal substances beyond specific limits.
If Cheong manages to escape death row, he will be the fourth drug trafficker to do so in Singapore. The first case involved 25-year-old Malaysian Yong Vui Kong who was first sentenced to death for possessing more than 15 grams of heroin, but was re-sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Read Also: Drug trafficker re-sentenced to life imprisonment instead of death