Execution of Saridewi Djamani

Saridewi binte Djamani (1978 – 28 July 2023) was a Singaporean who was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking 1 kg of drug containing 30.72g of heroin.

Saridewi binte Djamani was born in Singapore in 1978.

She had a long history of drug abuse.

Saridewi was reportedly the first woman scheduled to be hanged in Singapore in nearly 20 years after Yen May Woen in March 2004.

As Saridewi's execution drew near, the government of Singapore was met with international criticism and pleas for clemency.

She has once served a jail term at one point before her release in 2014 for a drug offence.

In her police statement during investigations, she said she stopped smoking heroin since her release from prison in 2014.

But in court, she testified she was suffering from a relapse and was a severe drug addict.

Saridewi, who committed the offence on 17 June 2016, was arrested on the same day together with the drug courier at her HDB block in Anchorvale Road, Sengkang.

Saridewi, who had a long history of drug abuse, did not deny that she sold the drugs but she stated that a majority of the heroin was meant for her own consumption while less than half of the heroin was for sale, and she only stocked up the drug supply for the fasting month Ramadan.

The trial court sentenced Saridewi to the mandatory death penalty for heroin trafficking.

Saridewi's accomplice, a 41-year-old Malaysian, received a life term with 15 strokes of the cane since he only acted as a courier and thus played a lesser role in the crime.

Saridewi lost her appeals, and after spending five years on death row, she was hanged on 28 July 2023.

On the afternoon of 17 June 2016, at her flat in Sengkang, Saridewi, then 38 years old, was arrested by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) for possible drug trafficking, after she was spotted with another man under the surveillance of the narcotics officers at her void deck for a suspected drug transaction.

The man, a Malaysian named Muhammad Haikal bin Abdullah, was arrested at a traffic junction nearby Saridewi's HDB block moments after he departed from the block on his motorcycle, and they recovered an envelope containing SGD$10,050 in cash and another containing SGD$5,500 in cash from Haikal's possession.

At Saridewi's flat, a plastic bag containing drugs, consisting of about 30.72g of heroin was seized by the officers.

Saridewi reportedly threw away her packets of drugs out of her kitchen window on the 16th floor before answering the door.

Both Saridewi and Muhammad Haikal were charged with drug trafficking; Saridewi was charged with trafficking 30.72g of heroin, while Muhammad Haikal was charged with trafficking 28.22g of the same drug.

Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the death penalty was mandatory should a person be found guilty of trafficking at least 15g of heroin, although the law also allows judges the discretion to sentence drug offenders to life imprisonment (with the offender liable to caning) if they merely acted as couriers or suffered from diminished responsibility.

Her urine test after her arrest in June 2016, also did not detect the presence of drugs.

Justice See also found that Saridewi's various inconsistent accounts were an attempt to downplay the scale of her drug trafficking scheme, and noted that a government psychiatrist did not detect Saridewi suffering from any mental disorder despite her long history of drug abuse.

He also stated that it was unbelievable that Saridewi would want to stock up a two-year supply of drugs to match up to her intake of one or two sticks per every three days (these drugs alone would be sufficient for Saridewi to consume for 282 days).

Therefore, the judge found Saridewi guilty as charged and convicted her accordingly.

Similarly, Muhammad Haikal's defence was rejected and he was hence convicted of drug trafficking as well, since he failed to rebut the presumption that he was aware of the nature of the drugs he delivered to Saridewi.

During the sentencing phase on the same day, Justice See found that based on the evidence, Saridewi was not acting as a courier and also did not suffer from diminished responsibility, and therefore, she was ineligible for the alternate sentence of life imprisonment and was sentenced to death, the sole sentencing option available for her case.

Saridewi's lawyers expressed they would appeal against her conviction and sentence.

On the other hand, Saridewi's 41-year-old accomplice Muhammad Haikal bin Abdullah, who only acted as a courier and provided full cooperation with the authorities during investigations, was spared the gallows and instead, he was sentenced to life in prison and 15 strokes of the cane.

Muhammad Haikal, who did not appeal, is currently serving his life sentence at Changi Prison.

After she was sentenced to death, Saridewi appealed to the Court of Appeal and sought leave to introduce new medical evidence to support her contention that she was suffering from drug withdrawal symptoms which were severe enough to impair her ability to give her statements coherently and accurately.

Both the suspects were brought to trial on 11 April 2018 for their charges.

During the trial, Saridewi did not deny that she had sold heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and Erimin from her HDB flat, but argued that out of the 30.72g of heroin, 19.01g of this was meant for her consumption and the remaining 11.71g would be for the purpose of trafficking, and she only stocked up a lot of these drugs for the fasting month Ramadan since her daily intake of drugs increased around that time.

Saridewi also submitted a psychiatric report that she was suffering from persistent depressive disorder and severe substance use disorder, and made claims that her statements were not made voluntarily because she was suffering from drug withdrawal symptoms and could not coherently give the accurate account of the offence she committed.

As for Saridewi's co-accused Muhammad Haikal, he testified that when he delivered the drugs to Saridewi, he did not know it was heroin, and instead, he believed that he was delivering medical drugs for pain relief or for enhancing sexual performance.

On 6 July 2018, after a trial lasting 13 days, the verdict was delivered by the trial judge See Kee Oon.

Justice See rejected Saridewi's defence, citing the inconsistencies in Saridewi's claims about her rate of heroin consumption.

Saridewi, who was incarcerated on death row for five years since 2018, was one of the two women held on Singapore's death row.

On 16 September 2020, the Court of Appeal approved a remittal hearing in front of the original trial judge at the High Court.

However, on 28 June 2022, the original trial judge See Kee Oon found that she had "at most been suffering from mild to moderate methamphetamine withdrawal during the statement-taking period" but the symptoms were "minimal and not noticeable" and her ability to give statements was not impaired.

Therefore, he once again found Saridewi guilty of drug trafficking and upheld her death sentence.

After the remittal hearing, Saridewi appealed a second time to the Court of Appeal, but the appellate court's three judges - Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and two Judges of Appeal Andrew Phang and Tay Yong Kwang - rejected her appeal and affirmed the trial judge's findings on 6 October 2022.