IT is difficult to know how much pain the three Hong Kong prisoners executed in Singapore yesterday felt when the trap door opened.
Was it a virtually painless, rapid, and dignified death, with the punishment fitting the crime, as supporters of the death penalty would say? Or was it deeply barbaric and, quoting Nicholas Ingram, the British-born murderer recently sent to the electric chair in the US, a form of death 'devoid of humanity' with humans treated like sheep bound for slaughter? Poon Yuen-chung, 22, Tong Ching-man, 24, and Lam Cheuk-wang, 25, were the last of the Hong Kong people waiting to face the gallows since the island republic introduced a mandatory death penalty for drug traffickers over 18 in 1975. So far 15 Hong Kong people have been executed.
Also hanged yesterday was a 34-year-old unemployed Singaporean for possession of 24 grams of heroin. He had led police to his house. Possession of 15 gm is a capital offence.
It was a year ago that I met Poon, whose life ended about 6 am in Changi Prison's death chamber for a crime she committed when she was 18. Tong was also 18 at the time. Lam was 19.
For a fifth of Poon's life, home was a bare cell at Changi's romantically named Moon Crescent unit. It was there the bespectacled, short-haired woman with a broad smile told me she was hopeful Singapore would spare her.
It was also there she shared with me a secret she had not dared tell even her parents.
'I did smuggle drugs,' she said with downcast eyes, 'because a friend had crashed my motorbike, and I wanted money to buy a new one.' Poon was more cheerful than I would expect from a person on death row. A renewed interest in Christianity had helped keep her calm and composed. Perhaps she never truly believed Singapore would kill her for a stupid mistake she made when she was 18. I will never forget her parting grin.
