Singapore’s pre-execution photos seek to soften a policy activists say doesn’t work
Staff, 2022-10-22 06:06:00,
Hong Kong
CNN
—
Nazira Lajim Hertslet can’t help but gush over pictures of her brother Nazeri.
“Doesn’t he look so tall and so handsome,” she said of a series of photos of the 64-year-old grandfather dressed in casual wear.
He smiles in one photo, standing tall against a white floral curtain and even comes across as playful in some shots. But this was not a happy occasion.
These were the last photos taken of Nazeri Bin Lajim before he was executed in Singapore on drugs charges in July.
Arrested in 2012 and convicted of trafficking 33.89 grams of heroin, Nazeri was hanged at dawn – the fifth of 11 inmates sent to the city-state’s gallows so far this year for drug offenses. The most recent execution was an unnamed 55-year-old Singaporean man who was hanged in early October, according to the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB).
In a statement to CNN, the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) said it provided prisoners with “the option to have photographs taken in clothes which are sent in by their families.”
“This is done to allow family members to have recent photographs of their loved one,” SPS said. “The decision as to whether to take the photographs is purely the prisoner’s.”
Nazira said the gesture had brought her some comfort and relief in a system that has inflicted “so much pain and…
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