The Singaporean Court of Appeal on Thursday discharged and acquitted a Nigerian Ilechukwu Uchechukwu on death row for drug trafficking.
The court’s decision comes five years after it convicted him of the offence.
Mr Ilechukwu was arrested on November 13, 2011 on arrival in Singapore after almost 2kg (1,963.3g) of methamphetamine was found in a black trolley bag he was carrying.
The Nigerian was acquitted after a trial in the High Court in 2014 but the appellate court reversed that decision in 2015 and found him guilty of drug trafficking.
Ilechukwu’s lawyers provided “material evidence” showing that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with dissociative symptoms while giving statements to authorities.
In a split decision, four out of five justices on the case found that Ilechukwu did not know there were drugs in the bag and that he had been “deceived” unwittingly into transporting drugs.
“The picture that emerges from the evidence is that he had grossly misjudged (his childhood friend and acquaintance), and naively believed that he was doing a simple favour in return for promised business contacts.
“Unwittingly, he had been deceived into transporting drugs on their behalf to (their) contact in Singapore,” the judges ruled.
In a statement, Ilechukwu’s lawyers said: “It has been a long and hard-fought pro bono case, involving specialist psychiatric evidence and issues of cross-cultural sensitivities…
“Had it not been for the fortuitous production of the IMH report, our client would have been sentenced to death or life imprisonment. We are delighted that justice has prevailed to acquit our client this morning.”
