REBUTTAL TO “IN 2005, AN AUSTRALIAN CITIZEN WAS HANGED IN SINGAPORE. IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN.”

1. We refer to Lex Lasry’s article dated 3 December 2024 in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and WAtoday: “In 2005, an Australian citizen was hanged in Singapore. It could happen again.”

2. Lasry has mischaracterised Singapore’s approach to drugs. Among other things, he makes the following false assertions:

   1. That drug offences are non-violent.

   2. The death penalty does not have a deterrent effect in Singapore’s context.

   3. Anti-death penalty activists have been the subject of Police investigations due to their views on the death penalty.

   4. The Singapore Courts unjustly rejected Lasry’s application to represent a former drug trafficker, and that the Courts threaten local counsel with costs orders to “speed up” court processes.

Drug trafficking is not ‘non-violent’

3. Lasry has described the drug offences that attract capital punishment as “non-violent”. This characterisation is wilfully blind to realities around the world.

4. First, there is a clear nexus between drug trafficking and violent crime. In the EU, half of all homicides and more than a quarter of illegal firearms seizures were linked to drug trafficking.^[1] More than half of all homicides in England and Wales are linked to the drug trade.^[2] Last year, the Netherlands convicted three members of a drug cartel in what the BBC described as “the biggest criminal trial in Dutch history”. These men were involved in a series of “ruthless” gangland killings, at times killing fathers in the presence of their young children.^[3] A lawyer representing teenage shooting victims and suspects in Sweden told the BBC that children in Sweden are using their “own bags not to carry books, but they carry the drug markets in Sweden on their shoulders”.^[4] The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that the surge in cocaine production in the last decade has intensified violence in Latin America, and it has one of the highest regional homicide rates in the world, attributed largely to organised crime linked to the drug trade.^[5]

5. Second, apart from fuelling violent crime, drug trafficking feeds drug addiction, which causes immense harm to society. The World Health Organisation reported that more than 600,000 deaths in 2019 were attributable to drug abuse – more than twice the number of deaths caused by firearms in the same year. In the United States, drug overdose continues to claim more than 100,000 lives each year since 2020.^[6] In fact, in the US, every 14 months, more Americans die from abusing fentanyl than from all of America’s wars combined since the Second World War, from Korea to Afghanistan.^[7]

6. Third, drug abuse affects not just the abuser, but also their family and the community. A study published in 2018 showed that in the United States, one infant is born every 15 minutes with withdrawal symptoms after being exposed to opioids before birth.^[8] Babies shake and tremble, experience nausea and may even have seizures. Research also shows that adult opioid use is linked with child maltreatment. Children who live with an addicted parent have to deal with constant uncertainty and fear. Some take over the role of family caregiver for younger siblings or for their addicted parents. Some are placed in foster care.^[9] The cost and suffering clearly goes well beyond the abuser.

7. The above is only a snapshot of the violence, the harm that the drug trade has caused.

The death penalty has been an effective deterrent in Singapore

8. Singapore is located at the doorstep of the Golden Triangle – a major drug producing region. In 2022, the UNODC reported that East and Southeast Asia (SEA) is “literally swimming in methamphetamine”. In 2023, there was a record seizure of 190 tonnes of methamphetamine in East Asia and SEA.^[10] Singapore adopts a zero-tolerance policy in respect of drug traffickers. They destroy the lives of others, for money. Lasry notes that 15g of diamorphine (pure heroin) is enough to attract the death penalty. But he omits to mention that this amount is equivalent to about 1,250 straws of heroin, which can feed the addictions of 180 abusers for a week.

9. Lasry’s claim that the death penalty does not have a deterrent effect is untrue. There is clear evidence that it has been and continues to be an effective deterrent in Singapore’s context.

   1. After Singapore introduced capital punishment for trafficking in more than 1.2kg of opium in 1990, there was a 66% reduction in the average net weight of opium trafficked in the four years that followed, compared to the four-year period before its introduction.

   2. Similarly, after we introduced capital punishment for trafficking in more than 500g of cannabis in 1990, there was a 15 to 19 percentage point reduction in the probability that a trafficker would traffic above the capital sentence threshold in the four years that followed, as compared to the four-year period before its introduction.

   3. Research studies show that drug traffickers deliberately restrict the amount of drugs they carry in order not to exceed the capital sentence threshold.

   4. A 2021 study was done in areas where most of those who traffic drugs into Singapore come from. 87.2% of the respondents believed that capital punishment deters people from trafficking substantial amounts of drugs into Singapore. 82.5% believed that capital punishment is more effective than life imprisonment for this purpose.

10. Lasry also does not mention that in Singapore, a distinction is made between drug abusers and traffickers. While a zero-tolerance approach is taken for those who choose to traffic in drugs, there is also a comprehensive, evidenced-based rehabilitation programme for drug abusers. Those who have not committed other offences will receive treatment and rehabilitation without a criminal record, regardless of the number of times they relapse back to drugs.

11. There are also intensive efforts in Preventive Drug Education, and in the treatment and rehabilitation of drug abusers. With these efforts, drug abuser arrests in Singapore have fallen significantly over the years. In the 1990s, we arrested about 6,000 drug abusers annually. This figure has come down by almost half. In addition, from 1993 to 2021, the two-year recidivism rate for those released from our Drug Rehabilitation Centres decreased by more than two and a half times from 73% to 27.7%, and has remained stable since.

12. The evidence shows that our drug control policies have enabled us to achieve relative success in controlling the drug situation, despite the proliferation of drugs in the region and global society’s increasingly permissive attitudes towards drugs. A full account of Singapore’s drug control policies can be found here: https://www.mha.gov.sg/mediaroom/parliamentary/ministerial-statement-on-singapore-national-drug-control-policy/.

Activists who oppose the death penalty are free to express their views in a lawful manner

13. Lasry also paints an untrue picture of alleged government repression against “brave local anti-death-penalty activists”. No one is investigated in Singapore merely because they hold a different political view or opinion. Rather, people are investigated if they break our laws, for example, on public order. This applies to everyone in Singapore, regardless of political opinion or affiliation. This is the essence of the rule of law.

Allegations against the Singapore Courts are manifestly untrue

14. Lasry referred to his previous application for ad hoc admission to the Singapore Bar in 2003, to represent a former drug trafficker in the Singapore courts. He suggested that the application failed, as “[t]hey do not want non-compliant foreign lawyers”. This is surprising, as Lasry would be well aware that most jurisdictions have rules on who may appear in their courts. Only lawyers who have the requisite qualifications and/or expertise, may be admitted to the Bar. Foreign lawyers do not, generally, have a right of audience in Singapore Courts, just as Singapore lawyers have no such rights in Australian Courts. Lasry seems to assume that, as an Australian, he should as of right be entitled to appear and argue in the Singapore Courts. On what basis does such entitlement arise?

15. In Lasry’s case, the Court’s reasons for rejecting his application are detailed in a publicly released High Court judgment (Re Lex Lasry QC [2004] 1 SLR(R) 68). The High Court applied the well-established legal principles on the ad hoc admission of foreign counsel, and found no basis to grant the application. The High Court also noted that the points of law which Lasry wished to advance, could be submitted through the offender’s Singapore counsel.

16. Lasry also erroneously suggested that our Courts threatened local counsel with costs orders to “speed up the process”. In Singapore, as in many jurisdictions (including Australia), there are laws to prevent the abuse of court processes. This is to safeguard the proper functioning of the justice system, and the rule of law. In Singapore, costs orders against lawyers may only be imposed by the Courts if the proceedings were brought or conducted improperly, such as where they were frivolous, vexatious or an abuse of process. This applies to all lawyers equally, regardless of whom they represent. Lawyers who are found to have acted improperly will be held accountable under the relevant laws, while those who have not have nothing to fear.

Conclusion

17. Singapore’s policies on drugs and the death penalty have worked for Singaporeans. The Singapore Government will not abdicate its responsibility to protect Singaporeans.

^[1] The Economist, “Criminal networks are well ahead in the fight over Europe’s ports”, Apr 2024.

^[2] National Audit Office, “Reducing the harm from illegal drugs (Summary)”, Oct 2023.

^[3] BBC, “Dutch mega-trial exposes brutal gangland underworld”, Feb 2024.

^[4] BBC, “Spread of gang violence wrecks Sweden’s peaceful image”, Dec 2023.

^[5] UNODC Global Study on Homicide 2023, “Homicide and organised crime in Latin America and the Caribbean”.

^[6] The American Journal of Managed Care, “US overdose deaths outpace other countries, report finds”, Jan 2025.

^[7] The Economist, “America’s fentanyl epidemic, explained in six charts”, Mar 2024.

^[8] Pediatrics, “Incidence and Costs of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Among Infants with Medicaid: 2004 - 2014”, Apr 2018

^[9] The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, “The Opioid Crisis and Child Maltreatment Across Counties and Time in the United States”, Mar 2023.

^[10] UNODC, “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: Latest Developments and Challenges 2024”, May 2024.