Execution of Angel Mou Pui Peng

Angel Mou Pui Peng (毛佩萍 or 莫佩萍, 1 January 1970 – 6 January 1995) was a 25-year-old female Macau national executed in Singapore for drug trafficking.

After purportedly being recruited to work as a courier for a Hong Kong-based drug trafficking organization, Mou was arrested while in possession of over 5 kilograms of high-quality heroin during a stopover in Singapore's Changi Airport.

Despite vehemently protesting her innocence and stating that she was tricked into smuggling narcotics, Mou was found guilty at trial and sentenced to death. The circumstances of Mou's arrest and execution were given wide coverage by the media, with many appeals being made by politicians worldwide for the commutation of her death sentence. However, the Singaporean authorities were ultimately undeterred by pleas for clemency from senior statesmen such as the President of Portugal and the Governor of Hong Kong.

Biography
Born in Macau in 1970, Angel Mou Pui Peng was a resident of Hong Kong at the time of her arrest.

Background
In the summer of 1991, Angel Mou asked her younger sister Mei Mei if she would be willing to carry "something" from Thailand to Taiwan, hidden inside a pair of platform shoes. After she agreed, on 24 July 1991 they went to the Garden Restaurant in Sham Shui Po where they met two men, 'Ah Hung' and 'Peter', and they received HK$10,000 each in advance of their HK$50,000 fee for the trip. Before she left Hong Kong, Mou asked her mother to pray to protector Buddhist deities to rid her of bad luck for her first trip abroad.

Arriving in Bangkok on 24 August 1991, they met Ah Hung, who treated them to a few days of sightseeing and shopping. He then told them there was a change of plan: instead of high-heeled shoes they would be given bags to carry, and that instead of Taiwan they would be going to Singapore and then to Europe to deliver the goods. Mei Mei later said she thought they would be carrying contraband Rolex wristwatches to Amsterdam. That night, the sisters were split up and moved into different hotels, and the next day Mou was sent on a flight to Singapore.

After learning of Mou's arrest, Ah Hung re-routed Mei Mei's flight to Zürich via Seoul (without informing her of what happened to Angel). Mei Mei only learned of her sister's fate when she arrived back in Hong Kong from Holland and was met at Kai Tak airport by narcotics bureau detectives from the Royal Hong Kong Police.

Arrest at Changi Airport
Angel Mou arrived at Changi Airport (to catch a connecting flight to Zürich) at around midday on 29 August 1991, where her unusual behaviour caught the attention of a customs officer. At baggage conveyor belt number 17 on the West wing of Terminal 1, she picked up her duffel bag but then hesitated and dropped it, allowing the bag to go around another time before picking it up. Customs officer Rosli Brahim also recognised her bag as a similar type to what Poon Yuen Chung was carrying when she was caught the month before attempting to smuggle narcotics through the same airport. After Mou put the bag on her trolley and started wheeling it towards the exit of the Arrivals hall, she was stopped by customs officers Rosli Brahim and Suriati Mohamed, who asked Mou to open her bag for an inspection.

Her nervous demeanour raised the suspicion of the officials, and after customs officer Mohamed inspected the bag she realized she could not run her hands down to the very bottom of its inside. The officers then escorted Mou, who was becoming increasingly agitated, to the Customs Duty office where a more thorough search could be conducted. The bag was emptied of all its contents and then placed on a weighing scale, which showed an unusually heavy weight of 7 kilograms. After cutting through the bag's false bottom, the officers discovered 20 blocks of heroin, weighing approximately a total of 5.5 kilograms (with an estimated street value of $5 million).

When interrogated by officers at the scene about the narcotics they discovered in her luggage, Mou mostly remained silent. However, she did state that the bag was given to her by someone else and she did not know what was inside. On 30 August 1991, Mou was charged with the importation of the heroin discovered in her bag and then remanded in custody to await trial.

Back in Hong Kong, Mou's mother heard a news report on the radio that a woman of her daughter's age, and with the same surname, had been arrested for drug trafficking in Singapore. Soon after she received a phone call to inform her that it was Mou herself who had been detained.

Trial
In the opening statements of Mou's trial at the High Court of Singapore on 2 March 1993, customs officer Rosli Brahim testified how Mou was one of the last passengers to retrieve her bag from the carousel, and appeared nervous by frequently looking at her surroundings, at the immigration officers, and at the customs officers. She was then stopped by customs officer Suriati Mohamed, who asked for her passport and then told her to open her bag. Suspecting the bag had a false bottom, they escorted her to the Customs Duty office and subsequently discovered the hidden drugs after cutting open the bag.

Mou testified in her defence that she was a part time prostitute who was being paid US$1,000 per day for a long weekend in Bangkok, after which she was instructed by her pimp, a man named "Ah Hung", to visit Singapore to service a client. She claimed the pimp then packed her bag without her knowledge while she was taking a bath in a Bangkok hotel, and he also carried the bag and checked it in for her at the airport. Mou asserted that she had no knowledge of the drugs in her bag before she set off for Singapore. Defence lawyers also stated that "Ah Hung" had since been arrested by police in Hong Kong for narcotic offences and that his case was pending trial, a fact they asserted backed up Mou's testimony.

Verdict
On 11 March 1993, Mou was found guilty as charged and sentenced to death for importing 4 kilograms of pure heroin into Singapore, contrary to Section 7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. Judicial Commissioner Amarjeet Singh rejected her defence as "not credible". Mou's mother and her sister Mei Mei were present to hear the verdict, and they were reportedly distraught at the pronouncement of the death penalty in court, in contrast to Mou, who remained expressionless during sentencing.

Appeals
On 11 July 1994, Mou's appeal against her death sentence was rejected by Singapore's Court of Criminal Appeal. Her lawyer Peter Yap argued that since Mou had walked towards the airport customs officers and opened her bag for an inspection voluntarily, her actions demonstrated she did not have any prior knowledge of any hidden narcotics, which backed up her claim that she was tricked into smuggling heroin. Yap also asserted that oral testimony from a customs officer during her Mou's trial was contradictory and should not have been accepted as admissible evidence, and that conflicting evidence from the interpreter and recording officer who took Mou's statements while in custody also undermined the integrity of Mou's conviction. The Court dismissed all defence arguments and upheld the original judgment.

Conviction of Ah Hung in Hong Kong
On 29 November 1993, 'Ah Hung' pled guilty in the Supreme Court of Hong Kong to a charge of assisting people in Hong Kong to commit an offence outside the territory (Section 40 of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance), the first conviction of its kind for that offence in Hong Kong legal history. Although Deputy Judge Wong queried the consequences of Ah Hung's actions and highlighted the fact that Mou was facing the death penalty in Singapore as a result, defence lawyer Gary Plowman Q.C. asserted the judge could not penalize Ah Hung for crimes committed outside the jurisdiction, but only for the preparatory acts committed in the territory of Hong Kong. Ah Hung was later sentenced to $4 1/2$ years in prison. At the time of his arrest, Ah Hung was carrying a Malaysian passport bearing the name of one Sia Khim Meng. In fact, the passport itself was reported missing to the Thai authorities months before the case. Ah Hung, whose real name was never confirmed, was subsequently identified as a Chinese citizen.

Angel's younger sister Mei Mei testified as the principal witness against Ah Hung during his trial, identifying him as the syndicate member who packed the sisters' bags with heroin. Mei Mei had previously asserted in statements made to Hong Kong police detectives that her and Mou had thought the bags contained stolen Rolex watches, and had been tricked into carrying narcotics. Despite this, Mei Mei had written a letter to him pleading he inform Singapore authorities that Mou was unaware of what was hidden by him in her bag (he never replied to her). Ah Hung was released from prison on 10 October 1994 and then deported to China.

Execution
In early December 1994, after a final plea for clemency was rejected by President of Singapore Ong Teng Cheong and having exhausted all legal processes for appeal, a death warrant was finalized and sent to Angel Mou's family in Hong Kong. They were notified via telegram from the superintendent of Changi Prison that the execution would take place a week later on 23 December 1994. Mou was scheduled to be executed alongside Singaporean drug offenders Leong Wing Kong and Lim Choon Chye, however her lawyers filed an application for a stay of execution so her family could visit her in prison and celebrate Christmas with her (Mou had converted to Christianity while on death row) one final time before she could be put to death.

The request was granted by President Ong Teng Cheong, who had earlier rejected Mou's plea for clemency two weeks prior to the original date of her execution. Upon learning Mou's family had difficulty raising money for the journey to Singapore, the manager of Hinrichs Travel Services offered two return tickets free of charge, while The Indian Resources Group donated HK$10,000 towards the total cost.

On 30 December 1994, Mou's mother received a telegram in Hong Kong from the authorities in Singapore, informing her that Mou's execution would take place the following week. The telegram also said the family would be allowed to visit her three days before the scheduled hanging and could claim Mou's body after the death sentence had been carried out. Mou was visited on death row by her lawyer Peter Yap the day before she was brought to the gallows, who described her as being calm, emotionally stable and spiritually prepared for her impending execution.

Shortly before dawn on the morning of 6 January 1995, after a two-week stay of execution and rescheduling of her death sentence, 25-year-old Angel Mou Pui Peng was hanged at Changi Prison.

International reaction
Mou's case was given wide coverage by the Portuguese media, with frequent daily updates       on both television and radio in the lead up to her execution. Many appeals were previously made by politicians worldwide for the commutation of Mou's death sentence, including a landmark intervention by the President of Portugal Mario Soares,   along with similar diplomatic efforts from the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs José Manuel Barroso and the Governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten. The governor of Macau, Vasco Rocha Vieira, condemned Mou's execution as "incomprehensible and even revolting" while also expressing "deep sorrow" at Mou's death and feelings of "solidarity" with her family, while Chris Patten was quoted as saying he "deeply regrets the death penalty anywhere" and that he wished to express "deep sympathy and condolences" to Mou's family in Hong Kong. In an effort to gain clemency, Portugal's ambassador to Singapore, Sebastiao De Castello Branco, had previously described Mou as being "so poorly educated that she could not grasp the seriousness of the crime of drug smuggling".