After a four-years of struggle against his death sentence, the Singapore High Court made a rare decision today, giving a second chance to convicted drug trafficker Malaysian Yong Vui Kong, commuting his sentence to life imprisonment.

Y NONE ong's counsel M Ravi said judge Choo Han Teck was satisfied with Vui Kong's cooperation with the authorities and that his role in drug trafficking was merely as a runner.

He was therefore handed a life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane, the human rights lawyer told the reporters outside the Supreme Court complex this morning.

Vui Kong will be eligible to apply for parole in 2027, after serving 20 years of his sentence.

According to Ravi, an appreciative Yong kneeled in front of the judge upon hearing the decision.

Activists have been lobbying for clemency for Yong, a Sabahan now aged 25, over the last four years, seemingly with little success.

His change in fortune may be linked to the Singapore Parliament passing legal reforms last November that abolished the mandatory death sentence in some drug trafficking and murder cases.

With the law amendments, judges are able to impose a life sentence on a drug courier who cooperates with authorities in a “substantive way”, or on one who is “suffering from such an abnormality of mind that it substantially impaired his mental responsibility for committing the offence”.

The life imprisonment is applicable to a person convicted of murder if that individual “is not found to have intended to cause death”.

In September, Vui Kong and another drug trafficker, P Subashkaran, were awarded certificates of cooperation by Singapore Attorney-General’s Chambers - and this paved the way for the commutation of his death sentence. 

Hope shines on anti-death penalty struggle

Despite experiencing many setbacks in fighting for Vui Kong’s life, the jovial Ravi applauded the judge’s decision.

NONE “Finally, we have seen the positive outcome. During these four years of struggle, there were many reservations about myself and the activists continuing with our fight against the death penalty.

“People were saying, ‘why do you give the false hope to the fight?’, given that the court had turned down our application.”

However, Ravi ( above ) is relieved that new hope is shining on the anti-death penalty struggle following Vui Kong’s judgment.

Similar with Ravi, Vui Kong’s elder brother Yong Yun Leong, who was present in court, expressed gratitude for the judgment.

Calling the judgment a “miracle”, Yun Leong said he would advise his brother to appreciate his second chance.

“I will ask him to have new life. After that, he can be an example to warn the youth from getting involved with narcotics.”

NONE However, there will be no celebration for Vui Kong’s life imprisonment, Yun Leong ( right ) added.

In 2008, Vui Kong was sentenced to death after he was convicted of smuggling 47.27gm of heroin into Singapore.

However, he was granted a stay of execution twice, which is rare in the Singapore court.

During his prison life, Vui Kong converted to Buddhism and has taken on a determination to counsel the inmates on the lethality of narcotics use.

He wrote his last open letter to the public, which was published by Malaysiakini in July 2011, in which he said that he was at peace and was ready to face death.

Vui Kong's letters from death row