SINGAPORE – Singapore has invited Richard Branson to the republic for a live televised debate on the country’s approach towards drugs and the death penalty with Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam.
“Mr Branson’s flight to and accommodation in Singapore will be paid for,” said Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry in a statement issued through its website as a response to the British billionaire and Virgin Group founder’s blog post on October 10, 2022.
The ministry said Branson “may use this platform to demonstrate to Singaporeans the error of our ways and why Singapore should do away with laws that have kept our population safe from the global scourge of drug abuse.”
Among others, the ministry responded to Branson’s claim that a Malaysian, D. Nagaenthran, had a “well-documented intellectual disability” and was hung despite that.
“We have clarified on several occasions that this is untrue,” said the ministry.
“The Singapore courts held that Nagaenthran knew what he was doing and that he was not intellectually disabled. The psychiatrist called by the defence themselves agreed, in court, that Nagaenthran was not intellectually disabled,” it stressed.
Branson, in his post titled “World Day Against the Death Penalty: What’s the matter with Singapore?”, wrote that he, earlier this year, had joined a global community of advocates who tried to stop the execution of Nagaenthran.
The Malaysian was sentenced to death for carrying 42.72g of heroin into Singapore, which is known to have among the world’s toughest narcotics laws. – Bernama, October 23, 2022
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