Singapore hangs Nigerian drug smuggler

Peoples Action Party BASTARDS...

Fri Jan 26, 2007

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore hanged a 21-year-old Nigerian man for drug smuggling on Friday, despite pleas from the Nigerian president, the United Nations and international human rights groups to spare his life.

Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi was hanged at about 6 a.m. (2200 GMT) at the city-state's Changi prison, Stanley Seah, assistant superintendent at Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau, told Reuters.

No further details were immediately available.

Tochi was arrested at Singapore's Changi Airport in November 2004 for carrying about 727 grams of heroin.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo asked the Singapore government on Tuesday to grant a reprieve to Tochi, who was a champion football player in Nigeria according to human rights group Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign.

In Geneva, the United Nations' special investigator for extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions said on Thursday that Singapore would be violating international legal standards on the use of the death penalty if it went ahead with the hanging.

The death sentence is mandatory for anyone caught carrying more than 15 grams of heroin in Singapore, which enforces one of the harshest anti-drug laws in the world

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