Government plans to reintroduce bill on capital punishment for drug trafficking

President Dr Mohamed Muizzu has announced tonight that he has directed relevant institutions to bring back the current bill of amendments to the Drugs Act, aiming to include stricter penalties for drug trafficking offences, including capital punishment.

In a post shared on X, President Muizzu said that he intends to set stricter penalties including the death penalty for drug traffickers, as is practised in several other countries.

The President emphasized that a key objective of the government is to cultivate a drug-free generation and eliminate the societal harms caused by drugs.

The government announced last year that the death penalty had been included in the draft bill of amendments to the Drugs Act. However, this was omitted from the bill when the bill was submitted to parliament late last year.

At the time, the government intended to follow the Singaporean model in implementing the death penalty for drug traffickers, it has been reported.

As per the Drugs Act, the current penalty for drug trafficking is a life sentence in prison, along with a fine of between MVR 100,000 and MVR 10 million.

As the law stands, capital punishment is only sentenced in cases of intentional homicide. There are, even at present, a number of prisoners currently on death row. However, Maldives has had a moratorium on the implementation of death penalty since 1953.

Singapore enforces the death penalty for drug trafficking. Should the Maldives adopt similar legislation, it would become the second South Asian nation to actively implement capital punishment for such offences. While Sri Lanka’s law also prescribes the death penalty for drug trafficking, the country currently maintains an unofficial moratorium on its enforcement