Norasharee bin Gous ( – 7 July 2022) was a Singaporean who was found guilty of soliciting a man named Mohamad Yazid Md Yusof to traffic 120.90g of diamorphine (heroin). Upon the courier's arrest on 23 October 2013, Norasharee was not arrested until July 2015, and he was charged with abetting and instigating Yazid to commit drug trafficking. A third co-accused, Kalwant Singh Jogindar Singh, was also arrested on the same date and venue as Yazid and charged in court for drug trafficking.
Norasharee, together with Kalwant, were both sentenced to death after they were not certified as couriers or having diminished responsibility, while Yazid was sentenced to life in prison with caning on behalf of him being a certified courier. Norasharee made several appeals against his sentence, and at one point, he was granted a re-trial based on new evidence but once again sentenced to death. Norasharee was hanged on 7 July 2022, the same day as his co-accused Kalwant.
Early life
Norasharee bin Gous was born in Singapore on 22 November 1973. While nothing was known about his family or background, court documents revealed that Norasharee was formerly a member of the local street gang '369' (or Salakau) during his younger years.
Norasharee was involved in several gang fights in the past. In 1998, he got into a fight with the gang leader of Salakau's rival gang "Omega" at a club at the basement of the Telok Blangah House. After Norasharee emerged victorious from the fight, the Omega gang's lower members attacked Norasharee out of revenge in 1999, stabbing him at the shopping mall Northpoint. Norasharee left the gang in 2008, but during the time he was working as a bouncer at a nightclub (between 2011 and 2013), Norasharee still faced harassment from the Omega gang members.
Arrest and trial
On 24 October 2013, 35-year-old Singaporean Mohamad Yazid Bin Md Yusof and 23-year-old Malaysian Kalwant Singh a/l Jogindar Singh were arrested at a multi-storey carpark at Woodlands Drive during a Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) operation. The CNB officers recovered six bundles wrapped with black tape from the motor box of Yazid’s motorcycle, and these bundles contained not less than 120.90g of diamorphine. Another three bundles containing around 60g of drugs were also found in Kalwant's vehicle.
After Yazid and Kalwant were charged for drug trafficking, Yazid confessed that on the instructions of his boss, known to him as "Boy Ayie", he was told to receive packages of diamorphine from Kalwant for the purpose of trafficking. Even though there were evidence showing that Kalwant was aware of the presence of the drugs, he denied having knowledge of the diamorphine in his possession and claimed he was asked by his female boss through death threats to import the drugs, which he thought were not illegal narcotics. After police investigations, the real identity of Yazid's alleged instigator "Boy Ayie" was revealed as Norasharee Gous.
In July 2015, a year and nine months after the capture of Yazid and Kalwant, 42-year-old Norasharee was arrested and charged with instigating Yazid to traffic in not less than 120.90g of diamorphine on 23 October 2013. Norasharee was brought to trial in the High Court together with Yazid and Kalwant. Yazid alleged that Norasharee had personally met him at Vivo City on 23 October 2013 and told him to collect the drug bundles from a Malaysian courier (referring to Kalwant), to which Norasharee denied and claimed in his defence that he had met up with a colleague at Marina Keppel Bay for lunch at Vivo City. Norasharee claimed that Yazid lied to the police to frame him due to him being a rival gang member of his, and alleged that Yazid one of the Omega gang members involved in the 1999 Northpoint gang attack, and he stated that the animosity between his former gang and that of Yazid made it unlikely that they would engage in a partnership together to traffic drugs. But the testimony was rebutted by Yazid, who stated he was not involved in the gang attack and he did not have any prior personal vendetta against Norasharee at all.
On 1 June 2016, the High Court found that Yazid was a truthful witness and hereby rejected Norsharee's defence and therefore convicted him as charged. Since Norasharee was not a courier, he was sentenced to death. Similarly, Kalwant was also sentenced to death after his defence was rejected, while in contrast, Yazid, who was acknowledged as a courier, receives a certificate of substantive assistance and thus sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane for his crime.