Singaporean loses appeal against death sentence for trafficking heroin he purportedly thought was cannabis
TODAY file photoSINGAPORE — A Singaporean man sentenced to death for trafficking 34.9g of diamorphine or heroin has lost his appeals against his conviction and sentence.
Shen Hanjie, 33, argued in his appeal that he always believed the drugs in the bundles found in his Marsiling bedroom to be cannabis or "grass".
He also argued that he did not have the intention to traffic the drugs and that he was a mere courier.
The Court of Appeal in a judgment released on Friday (March 1) found no error in the trial judge's decision and dismissed Shen's appeals.
According to court papers, a team of 13 Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) officers went to the carpark of a block in Marsiling to look out for Shen on Nov 20, 2018.
When they got to his unit, the main door was open but his bedroom door was locked.
They broke into Shen's bedroom and arrested him, seizing multiple packets of drugs found inside.
In several statements given to investigators after his arrest, Shen claimed that he was keeping the drugs for a man known as Alan.
He said he had known him for about six months before his arrest, through a mutual friend.
He claimed that he met Alan only once at a playground, where Alan said that if Shen needed anything, Alan would be able to find someone to deliver it over.
Shen said he understood "anything" to be a reference to illegal things such as drugs.
After the meeting, Alan called Shen to say there were "things" coming in from "JB" and asked Shen to receive them on his behalf.
Shen claimed to not know what these things were, and found out they were drugs only after opening them up.
After this, he began receiving drugs on Alan's behalf. He claimed not to receive any fixed payment in return, but instead would ask Alan for about S$200 to S$300 whenever he needed money.
Shen used various to describe the drugs in his notebooks seized from his bedroom.
These included "Hot" for "Hot one", "Fish" for "cold one", referring to ice, "wine", "dance", "KFC" and "Gu", referring to grass or cannabis.
Shen said he smoked "ice" on a daily basis since early 2018.
He was jobless after he stopped helping out at his father's coffeeshop, and would receive allowances from his parents.
To get money, he would pawn various items including his parents' belongings and said he wanted to use the money for daily expenses and online betting.
At trial, the defence argued that Shen did not know what diamorphine is, as he had only ever consumed other types of drugs such as ice or cannabis.
While the prosecution argued that "hot one" referred to diamorphine, the defence argued that Shen understood "hot one" to refer to "ganja" or cannabis.
But the trial judge rejected the defence's explanation.
First, it was clear that Shen wrote down different entries for "hot" and "gu" in his notebooks. He could not have understood "hot" to be the same as "gu" or grass.
Second, Shen had omitted to mention in one of his statements that he knew "grass" to be the same as "hot one".
COURT OF APPEAL FINDINGS
The Apex Court agreed with the trial judge that Alan did not lie to Shen that the drugs were cannabis instead of diamorphine.Even if that were true, it was "unbelievable" that Shen would trust and believe Alan totally and accept his explanation at face value.
Justice Tay Yong Kwang, Justice Steven Chong and Justice Belinda Ang of the Court of Appeal said Shen was not "generally forthcoming and cooperative in the recording of investigation statements" as he claimed.
Instead, he was "far from being forthcoming" as he gave a blatantly false statement at one point that he did not know what grass was.
Later evidence would show that he was quite familiar with grass as he had helped Alan distribute this drug before, said the Court of Appeal.
"He even stated that he had smoked grass before but did not like the smell. Although he referred to it as 'gu' in his notebooks, in his evidence, he accepted that 'gu', 'grass' and 'ganja' all meant the same drug, cannabis," the court said.
The court noted that Shen had admitted he would deliver drugs to other people as directed by Alan.
Shen had been out of work for about two years before his arrest and was being paid by Alan to distribute the drugs.
There was also DNA evidence showing that he had repacked some of the drug packets, and there were drug-related paraphernalia such as clear wrap, empty packets and black tape that pointed to the fact that he was involved in the drug distribution. CNA
