A man was sentenced to death via a Zoom video call in Singapore, while the country remains stuck after a spike in Covid-19 cases.
Punithan Genasan, 37, was sentenced on Friday for his role in a drug deal that took place in 2011.
It marks the first case in the city where a similar sentence was pronounced remotely.
Human rights groups argued that pursuing the death penalty at a time when the world was gripped by a pandemic was "hateful".
The overwhelming majority of court hearings in Singapore have been suspended until at least June 1st, when the current blockade of the city ends.
Cases deemed essential are kept remotely.
"For the safety of all those involved in the proceeding, the public prosecutor's hearing against Punithan A / L Genasan was conducted by videoconference," a Singapore Supreme Court spokesman told Reuters.
The lawyer of Mr. Genasan, Peter Fernando, said his client is considering an appeal.
Singapore has a zero tolerance policy for illegal drugs. In 2013, 18 people were executed, the highest figure in at least two decades, according to Amnesty International.
Of these 18, 11 had been charged with drug-related offenses.
Analysis: anti-drug death penalty not controversial in Singapore
Anna Jones, BBC News, Singapore
Singapore prides itself on its low crime rate and is highly anti-drug, with a zero tolerance approach to drug trafficking.
Until recently, drug trafficking was one of the four crimes that led to a mandatory death sentence. Judges can now bring it to life with boxing, under certain conditions.
The government claims that suspended drug traffickers send a powerful deterrent message against a socially destructive crime.
Human rights activists have long argued that the process is too private and say executions disproportionately affect low-level drug mules, while doing little to stop the flow of drugs into the country.
Among Singapore, however, the use of the death penalty is largely uncontroversial.
Executions rarely get prominent coverage in the national media and opinion polls consistently show somehow huge public support for the death penalty, making the few anti-death penalty activists a marginal group.
In a country where the media rarely openly criticizes government decisions, there is unlikely to be much public outcry over the fate of Punithan Genasan which is being decided by video call.
Kirsten Han, a Singapore journalist and activist, said: "Issuing a death sentence through Zoom highlights how punitive the clinical and administrative capital punishment is."
He added that by ignoring the appearance in a courtroom, the defendant's family missed the opportunity to speak and hold hands with him.
Amnesty International said the ruling was a "reminder that Singapore continues to challenge international law and standards by imposing the death penalty for drug trafficking.
"At a time when global attention is focused on saving and protecting lives in a pandemic, the pursuit of the death penalty is all the more odious."
Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch Asia, told the BBC: "It is shocking that prosecutors and the court are so insensitive that they cannot see that a man who is facing capital punishment should have the right to be present in court to face his accusers. "
Singapore officials are not the first to issue a death penalty during a video conference.
Human Rights Watch condemned a similar ruling passed in Nigeria earlier this month.
Judge Lagos Mojisola Dada sentenced Olalekan Hameed to death by hanging himself for the murder of his employer's mother.
Hameed pleaded not guilty to killing 76-year-old Jolasun Okunsanya in December 2018.
"The irreversible punishment is archaic, inherently cruel and inhuman. It should be abolished," Human Rights Watch told the BBC at the time.
