Kirsten Han Profile picture
Sep 24, 2020 23 tweets 12 min read Read on X
I'd like to share the story of Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi, a young Nigerian footballer.

In 2007, at the age of 21, Tochi was hanged in #Singapore.
Tochi was arrested in Changi Airport in #Singapore on 27 November 2004. He was 18 years old.

He was later charged with importing not less than 727.02g of heroin. His case largely revolved around whether he could rebut the presumption clauses within the Misuse of Drugs Act.
What are these presumption clauses? First: if you have more than 2g of heroin, Section 17 of #Singapore's Misuse of Drugs Act (here: sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/MDA1973#pr…) presumes that you are trafficking the drugs.
Second: Section 18 of the Misuse of Drugs Act states that if you're found in possession or custody of anything containing a controlled drug (like heroin), you're presumed to have known the nature of the drug.
What this meant for Tochi: having >2g of heroin on him meant the law already presumed that he was trafficking. In his defence, he tried to rebut the presumption in Section 18 by arguing that he *did not* know that what he was carrying was heroin.
But let's back up first, and take a look at who Tochi was. He was arrested in Changi Airport at age 18. He'd left school when he was 14, and played football in #Nigeria and #Senegal. After returning home from Senegal, he wanted to go play in #Dubai.
Tochi travelled to #Pakistan, hoping to go to #Dubai from there, but ended up getting stranded. There, he met a man named Smith, who offered to help him. But even with Smith's help, he wasn't able to enter Dubai. So Smith offered to help him get to #Singapore instead.
Although he had no arrangements with any football clubs in #Singapore, Tochi hoped that once he arrived, he could approach the football federation for help, and that he could get trials with the clubs and hopefully play here.
Smith, in helping Tochi get to #Singapore, asked him to deliver something to a sick friend, Marshall, who would fly from #Indonesia and meet him in the transit area of Changi Airport. Marshall would give him money; in police statements, the amount was written down as US$2,000.
Tochi arrived in #Singapore and went to Terminal 2 of Changi Airport, but didn't find Marshall. When he called Smith, he was told that Marshall had missed his flight, and that he should check into the transit hotel to wait.
Tochi tried to check into the transit hotel. When a room became available, the hotel supervisor realised he'd already been in the transit area >24hrs, and was supposed to return to #Dubai 3 days later. She called the airport police, as per procedure. Tochi waited.
When his bags were searched, the police found the capsules that Smith had given to Tochi for Marshall. At first he said they were chocolate, but later said they were herbs. He even swallowed a capsule to show them — and had to be sent to hospital to get the capsule purged.
At trial, his defence counsel argued that Tochi hadn't known he was carrying heroin. Why would he have swallowed a capsule (containing a potentially lethal amount of heroin) if he knew? Why did he wait for the airport police to arrive w/o trying to hide/dispose of the capsules?
In the High Court judgment, the judge agreed that there was no direct evidence that Tochi knew that the capsules were heroin.

But remember the presumption clause: it's not for the prosecution to prove that he knew. It's for Tochi to prove that he didn't know.
The judge reasoned that because Tochi had been offered a rather large sum of money to deliver things to Marshall, he should have suspected that it was something dodgy, and should have asked more questions, or checked the capsules himself.
The judge was also not persuaded by Tochi's young age. He said that since Tochi left school at 14 and played football professionally, he was "not a simple sheltered boy fresh out of his village" and was "rich in life experiences for someone of 18 years."
On this basis, the judge found that he'd been wilfully blind, and that even if he really hadn't known the capsules were heroin, ignorance was not a defence because he should have suspected something was up, and should have checked.

Tochi was given the mandatory #deathpenalty.
In 2006, the Court of Appeal upheld Tochi's conviction and sentence. President S.R. Nathan denied his plea for clemency.

An independent @UN expert called on #Singapore not to execute Tochi, emphasising that one should be innocent until proven guilty: news.un.org/en/story/2007/…
Olesegun Obasanjo, then the Nigerian president, appealed to Prime Minister @leehsienloong for Tochi's life to be spared. Lee refused, citing "a duty to safeguard the interests of Singaporeans". smh.com.au/world/young-to…
Tochi, aged 21, was hanged in Changi Prison on 26 January 2007. Also executed on that day was Okele Nelson Malachy (a.k.a. Marshall, the man he was to have delivered the capsules to).

"How small the coffin was!" a friend recently remarked as she recalled his funeral. #RIP
You can read the High Court judgment I've used as the main source for this thread here: supremecourt.gov.sg/docs/default-s…
If you're a Singaporean and would like to express your support for the abolition of the #deathpenalty, please sign and share this petition: change.org/p/president-ha…
Added today: Rozman bin Jusoh's story

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More from @kixes

Nov 8, 2022
🧵 on Twitter and Mu*k, from the perspective of a journalist/activist from #Singapore (me)

1/ I am from a country that has significant issues with civil, political, and human rights. But my government also puts significant effort into public relations to bolster its reputation.
2/ I'm constantly meeting people who have no idea that, in #Singapore, you can be arrested for holding up a placard in public. That 11 men have been executed this year for #drugs. That we have serious issues with press freedom and media diversity.
3/ In this context, Twitter has been, and is, an extremely valuable tool in allowing me — a freelance journalist and activist with limited resources and no big institutional backing — to talk to people outside of #Singapore about our problems.
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Aug 21, 2022
As expected before #ndr2022:

#Singapore will finally repeal Section 377A (which criminalises sex between men), while also undermining the main point of repealing Section 377A by enshrining the discrimination against #LGBTQ people elsewhere

channelnewsasia.com/singapore/ndr-…
Once the Constitution is amended it's going to be freakin' hard to change it again. And as Lee himself points out, this is not just about marriage. It affects housing, education, who gets to be recognised as next-of-kin, even advertising and film codes (media censorship).
Right now, Section 377A is not enforced. So the reason it should be repealed is not 'cos gay men are getting arrested for having sex, but 'cos 377A exists as a signal that #LGBTQ people are different and less acceptable and therefore can be discriminated against.
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Aug 4, 2022
🧵 I’ve been sharing updates but wanted to put together a thread covering the substantive points of the Court of Appeal hearing today (well, yesterday now) involving 24 death row prisoners in #Singapore

#DeathPenalty #StopTheKilling
On 1 August, 24 death row prisoners filed an originating claim against the state, in relation to their right to access to justice. They claimed that the practice of handing out punitive cost orders against lawyers have deterred lawyers from taking on late-stage capital cases.
Due to this fear, they say that they’ve faced difficulties finding lawyers to represent them. Therefore, this practice of imposing cost orders has affected their constitutional rights in relation to access to justice.
Read 44 tweets
Aug 4, 2022
It’s 8:51pm and the judges haven’t returned yet. There was just an announcement that it will be about 20 minutes or so longer. 😣

Lots of anxious families right now, none more so than Abdul Rahim’s loved ones, who are waiting to find out if he will be granted a stay.
We’re still waiting here. It’s 9:33pm.
Read 10 tweets
Aug 4, 2022
It’s been about an hour since the court stood down to deliberate the appeal brought by 24 death row prisoners against the High Court striking out their civil suit relating to their right to access to justice. The hearing is conducted on Zoom so the 24 are calling in from prison.
On multiple screens in the courtroom you can see the Zoom gallery. 24 of those little rectangles are the death row prisoners, representing themselves because they don’t have a lawyer to represent them in this application.
It took some time to bring them all into the Zoom room and make sure they were all connected, audio working, etc. So instead of putting them in the waiting room like it usually does, they’ve just been left in the room while the judges were put in the waiting room.
Read 4 tweets
Jun 24, 2022
Okay, finally got access. If I understood what happened to me in interrogation correctly, after this morning there are now *more* offences that @justanotherock and I are on the hook for. Just going to sum it up as best I can…
The original 2 alleged offences that @justanotherock and I were questioned for this morning were: (1) when 4 of us hung out outside Changi Prison chatting the night of Kahar was executed, and (2) when we took photos outside of prison a couple of nights before Nagen was hanged. Image
However, ‘cos @justanotherock and I were wearing (different) T-shirts with anti-#deathpenalty slogans today, the police claim that we have committed another offence of “illegal procession”, ‘cos we walked from the market across the street to the police station this morning.
Read 13 tweets

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