Singapore yesterday executed a Malaysian man condemned for a drug offense after a court dismissed a last-minute challenge from his mother and international pleas to spare him.
Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, 34, had been on death row for more than a decade after he was convicted of trafficking about 43g of heroin into Singapore.
The city-state’s government has said its use of the death penalty for drug crimes is made clear at its borders.
Photo: AFP
Dharmalingam’s family and rights advocates confirmed the execution.
“On this score, may I declare that Malaysia is far more humane,” Dharmalingam’s sister, Sarmila Dharmalingam, said. “Zero to Singapore on this.”
Nagaenthran Dharmalingam’ supporters and lawyers said he had an IQ of 69 and was intellectually disabled, and that the execution of a mentally ill person was prohibited under international human rights law.
Singapore’s courts ruled, citing the testimony of psychiatrists in court, that he was not mentally disabled and had understood his actions at the time he committed the crime.
“Nagaenthran Dharmalingam’s name will go down in history as the victim of a tragic miscarriage of justice,” said Maya Foa, director of non-governmental organization Reprieve.
“Hanging an intellectually disabled, mentally unwell man because he was coerced into carrying less than three tablespoons of diamorphine is unjustifiable and a flagrant violation of international laws that Singapore has chosen to sign up to,” Foa added.
Nagaenthran Dharmalingam and his mother had filed a motion on Monday arguing that it was unconstitutional to proceed with his death sentence and that he might not have been given a fair trial because the lead justice who presided over his appeals had been the attorney general when Nagaenthran Dharmalingam was convicted in 2010, which the filing alleged could be a conflict of interest.
The court dismissed the motion, describing it as “frivolous.”
His family said that the body would be brought to their hometown in Malaysia’s northern state of Perak, where they have made preparations for his funeral.
Anyone found with more than 15g of heroin faces the death sentence in Singapore, although judges can reduce this to life in prison at their discretion.
Attempts to reduce Nagaenthran Dharmalingam’s sentence or obtain a presidential pardon failed.
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