A 30-year-old Southern African woman, precisely Botswana, arrested for smuggling drugs in Bangladesh was executed on Friday.
Lesedi Molapisi, of Ramotswa, Botswana, was detained upon arrival in January at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. She arrived via a Qatar Airways flight from South Africa and passed through Doha.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Lindiwe Sisulu Disputes ANC Top 6 Nominations: “I Was Robbed”
The customs officers at the airport and an intelligence agency reportedly stopped Molapisi as she crossed the green channel, which is the area for arriving travellers without any cargo to declare, according to the English-language daily newspaper New Age in Bangladesh.
The customs officers searched her bag and found over 3kg of a heroin-like granular substance.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Members Of Operation Dudula Injured In Fight With Foreign Traders
Sanuwarul Kabir, the deputy commissioner of Customs, was quoted by the Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star at the time of her arrest as saying:
“We have information that cocaine was being smuggled, but officials from the department of narcotics control confirmed that the seized item was heroin. We will send the samples for laboratory tests.”
According to The Zimbabwean Mail, Bangladesh has strict anti-drug laws that call for the execution of anyone found cultivating, producing, transporting, exporting, or importing heroin, cocaine, or cocaine derivatives in quantities greater than 25 grammes or millilitres illegally.
According to the Zimbabwean Mail, Molapisi was tried, found guilty, and given the death penalty.
Amnesty International reports that there were 579 executions recorded in 18 countries in 2021, up from 483 in 2020.
According to Amnesty International, the countries with the most documented executions are China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, in that order.
