Gobi Avedian
Gobi Avedian, born 7 April 1988 in Johor, Malaysia, worked as a security guard in Singapore and supported a wife and two children. In late 2014, to pay his daughter’s medical bills, he agreed to transport drugs for two friends, earning about RM500 per bag. He believed the drugs were harmless “disco drugs” mixed with chocolate and did not realize they were heroin.
On 11 December 2014, after carrying drugs into Singapore, he was arrested and the packages were found to contain 40.22 g of heroin, a capital offense that could carry the death penalty.
In 2017, the High Court acquitted him of the capital charge, finding he did not know the drugs contained heroin, and instead sentenced him to 15 years’ imprisonment and 10 strokes of the cane for a lesser charge of attempted trafficking. The prosecution appealed, and in October 2018 the Court of Appeal reinstated the death sentence.
Gobi sought clemency, which was denied in July 2019. He also attempted to delay his execution in 2020, which was unsuccessful. Later that year, a landmark ruling allowed him to reopen his case. In October 2020, the Court of Appeal ruled that he was not wilfully blind to the drugs’ nature and reversed the death sentence, restoring his 15-year term and caning, backdated to his remand in December 2014.
Gobi Avedian was released on 17 December 2024 on parole due to good behavior in prison, after serving about 10 years of his sentence.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 07:18 (CET).