A Malaysian man has been sentenced to death in Singapore via a Zoom video-call for his role in a drug deal. Singapore is being criticized for handing out a death sentence to a 37-year-old Malaysian drug trafficker via video-conferencing platform Zoom.

Malaysian drug trafficker Punithan Genasan was on Friday sentenced to hang in a hearing conducted remotely due to restrictions in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

He was told he would be hanged for masterminding a 2011 heroin transaction, court documents showed. It was the first criminal case where a death sentence was pronounced by remote hearing in Singapore.

Rights groups have criticized the use of video-calls for capital punishment verdicts, including a case in Nigeria earlier this month.

Singapore has a zero-tolerance policy for illegal drugs and has hanged hundreds of people including dozens of foreigners for narcotics offenses over past decades.

Singapore has so far reported 29,364 cases of the coronavirus and 22 deaths.