Poon Yuen-Chung





Poon Yuen-Chung – a drug trafficker
Hong Kong national Poon Yuen-Chung was one of five people hanged in Singapore at dawn on Friday the 21st of April 1995. Three were Hong Kong nationals, including Poon.

Poon, a shop assistant, together with her friend Lam Hoi-Ka, had been arrested at Changi Airport on the 16th of July 1991 when heroin was found in a secret compartment in each of their suitcases.

 Poon was 18 years and 10 months old, while Lam was 17 years and 6 months old.
Their version of events was that while in Bangkok on holiday, they had befriended a Chinese couple, Mr. and Mrs. Go, who had taken them out sightseeing. 

The Go’s later bought them new suitcases as replacements for their old ones. Tired from the day’s activities, the girls did not think much of this, and did not protest when Mrs. Go offered to help pack their cases for them.

3.6kg of morphine was found in Poon’s suitcase, while 3,457.1g of morphine was found in Lam’s. Both girls denied any knowledge of the drugs. Under Schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Act being in possession of more than 30 grammes of morphine is a capital crime. 

 They were tried in August 1993 before a judge, sitting without a jury. As she was over 18, Poon received the mandatory death penalty. Being under 18, Lam was ordered to be detained at the President’s pleasure.  

“My sister is a simple and naive girl who can do foolish things sometimes”, Poon's sister later told The Sunday Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper.

Despite last-minute appeals for clemency, Darshan Singh hanged the five convicted drug traffickers early on Friday at Changi Prison, a Prisons Department spokeswoman said. 

They were two women, Poon, and 24 year old Tong Ching-man and her former boyfriend Lam Cheuk-wang, 25. Also executed were a Nigerian and a Singaporean, both males, whom the spokeswoman did not identify. 

Since the Misuse of Drugs Act laws were passed in 1975, Singapore has hanged 111 people for drug offenses up to 1995.

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