TODAYonline | Singapore | Death penalty, a trade-off: "case of Malaysian Yong Vui Kong.
The 22-year-old successfully got a stay of execution from a High Court last December - despite the President rejecting his clemency plea - after being sentenced to hang for trafficking 47g of heroin.
He had told the court during his trial he was unaware of the contents of the packages as he was merely following the instructions of his boss in Johor Bahru when he drove into Singapore to deliver them.
But Mr Shanmugam said 'thousands of lives have been ruined due to the free availability of drugs' in cities such as Sydney and New York. It also contributes to soaring crime rates, he added.
'People assume you can have this safety and security without this framework of the law; that you can change it, and yet your safety and security will not be affected,' he said. 'But there are always trade-offs. The difficulty the Government has sometimes in explaining this is that the trade-offs are not apparent. The damage to a large number of others is not obvious.
'You save one life here, but 10 other lives will be gone. What will your choice be?'
If Yong escapes the death penalty, drug barons will think the signal is that young and vulnerable traffickers will be spared and can be used as drug mules, argued Mr Shanmugam.
'Then you'll get 10 more. There'll be an unstoppable stream of such people coming through as long as we say we won't enforce our laws,' he said during his ministerial community visit to Joo Chiat.
Another resident asked about vice activities in the constituency. Mr Shanmugam said the results of efforts to clean up the sleaze in Joo Chiat may not be 'to the satisfaction of everyone' yet, but the situation has 'substantially improved'."
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