[3] For the next 19 years, Yen remained the last woman to be executed in Singapore before Saridewi Djamani was hanged on 28 July 2023 for drug trafficking.
[9][10] During her trial at the High Court between January and March 2003, Yen, who was represented by Christina Goh, put up a defence that she was not aware of the presence of diamorphine in her bag.
Therefore, he ruled in favour of the prosecution and found that there were sufficient grounds to warrant Yen's conviction for drug trafficking.
[17][18] On 19 March 2004, after spending a year on death row, 37-year-old Yen May Woen was hanged at dawn in Changi Prison.
[20] Despite the criticisms directed by Amnesty International and other rights organizations and international pressure against the Singapore government,[21] the Singaporean authorities reiterated their firm stance that the death penalty was necessary to curb drug trafficking and it had been an effective deterrent and instrumental to maintaining the extremely low crime rates in the city-state.
[24] Alan Shadrake, a British journalist, wrote about Yen May Woan's case in his book Once A Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock, which was first published in 2010.
[25] For the next 19 years, Yen May Woen remained the last female offender to be hanged in Singapore for a capital offence,[26][27][28] before 28 July 2023, when Saridewi binte Djamani was executed at dawn for trafficking 30.72g of diamorphine.