Tristan Tan Yi Rui, a 33-year-old man sentenced to death in February 2023 for trafficking methamphetamine, has had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment following a rare grant of clemency by Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in response to media queries on 15 August 2025, confirmed that clemency was granted the day before, based on the advice of the Cabinet.
The decision comes despite the courts previously upholding Tan’s conviction and mandatory death sentence under Singapore’s drug trafficking laws.
The MHA said the sentence originally imposed on Tan was legally sound. However, clemency was recommended due to “the specific facts and circumstances of the case”.
The case involved Tan’s arrest on 27 September 2018 during a Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) operation in Tampines. He had been driving a white Volkswagen with another man in the front seat when officers discovered 499g of a crystalline substance. Subsequent analysis confirmed it contained not less than 337.6g of methamphetamine.
Tan was charged and eventually convicted under Singapore’s Misuse of Drugs Act, which imposes the death penalty for trafficking more than 250g of methamphetamine, unless mitigating conditions apply.
The High Court found that Tan had played a central role in arranging the collection of the drugs. He was not a mere courier.
WhatsApp messages showed that he had directly negotiated the transaction with a supplier known as “Hari”, using the alias “Travis”. The phone he used contained not only drug-related messages but also personal conversations with his then-fiancée, contradicting the defence claim that it was not his device.
Significantly, the court noted that Tan was aware of the nature and purpose of his actions. He had sent messages to his fiancée stating he was “waiting to load” and later, “dealing right now … heart thumping harder n faster”.
These were sent on the day of his arrest and were cited as clear indicators of his awareness of the drug-related activities.
The defence argued that Tan had merely acted as a driver and that the drugs were intended for Hari’s associates.
However, the court found this theory to be implausible. WhatsApp chats between Hari’s associates showed they were organising the collection of drugs from an external supplier, consistent with Hari acting as Tan’s supplier—not a final recipient.
Because the prosecution did not issue a certificate of substantive assistance, which would have allowed for a discretionary life sentence and caning, the court imposed the mandatory death sentence.
The MHA’s clemency announcement explained that another individual arrested during the same CNB operation had received a non-capital sentence. The identity of that person was not disclosed.
“The Cabinet decided to advise the grant of clemency to Tan to reduce the disparity in their respective outcomes,” the ministry stated. It emphasised that clemency is an “exceptional power” used sparingly as an act of executive grace.
Singapore’s Constitution allows the President, acting on Cabinet’s advice, to pardon or commute sentences.
Clemency in capital cases is exceedingly rare. The last such instance prior to Tan’s occurred in April 1998, when then President Ong Teng Cheong commuted the death sentence of Mathavakannan Kalimuthu, a 19-year-old convicted of murder, to life imprisonment.
More recently, in 2018, then President Halimah Yacob granted clemency to a man who, as a teenager, had murdered the wife of Anthony Ler.
However, that individual had not been sentenced to death. He was detained indefinitely under the President’s Pleasure and released after serving 17 years in custody. This case, while also rare, did not involve a death row inmate.
In cases involving the death penalty, a clemency grant may commute the sentence to life imprisonment, a fine, or both, depending on the circumstances.
Tan was represented by lawyer Ramesh Tiwary during the proceedings.
Tan’s successful clemency petition is notable in Singapore, where drug-related death sentences are strictly enforced and clemency is seldom granted.
One high-profile case in which clemency was rejected involved Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, a Malaysian man who had been on death row since 2010 after being convicted of trafficking 43g of heroin.
His case drew international attention due to concerns over his intellectual capacity. He was assessed with an IQ of 69, indicative of intellectual disability.
Despite appeals and public outcry, the government stated that Nagaenthran “clearly understood the nature of his acts”.
The courts held that he retained judgment over right and wrong and rejected his defence as fabricated. His clemency plea was ultimately denied, and he was executed in 2022 after exhausting all legal recourse.
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