Singapore Executes Malaysian Man in High-Profile Death Row Case – The Diplomat

ASEAN Beat | Society | Southeast Asia

Singapore has executed a Malaysian man convicted of drug trafficking, regardless of final ditch appeals for clemency on the grounds that he had an mental incapacity, in a case that has attracted worldwide sympathy and assist.

Nagaenthran Okay. Dharmalingam has been on loss of life row since 2010, for making an attempt to smuggle lower than 43 grams of heroin into Singapore. Final month, a Singapore courtroom dismissed Nagaenthran’s closing attraction in opposition to his loss of life sentence, stating that he had been “accorded his proper to due means of regulation with full consideration of his diploma of psychological duty.” In line with Reuters, Nagaenthran’s execution was confirmed by his brother Navin Kumar.

Nagaenthran’s case has generated concern each in Singapore, the place a number of hundred folks held a candlelight vigil at a downtown park late Monday to protest the approaching execution, as nicely prompting a global outcry. In latest months, officers from the United Nations and the European Union have condemned the approaching execution. Tycoons and celebrities together with Richard Branson, Stephen Fry, and Tim Shriver have all pleaded for Singapore to not perform the execution, claiming that the execution of a person stated to have “borderline mental functioning” is each immoral and unlawful underneath worldwide regulation.

In an interview with AFP, Branson, a long-time anti-death penalty campaigner, stated that Singapore’s continued use of the loss of life penalty in drug instances was a “horrible blotch” on the city-state’s fame. He urged Singapore to “abolish the loss of life penalty altogether” and “do what most different civilized international locations have achieved.”

“I don’t assume civilized international locations ought to be within the enterprise of killing their very own folks, or killing anyone,” he stated.

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Final month, a five-judge Courtroom of Enchantment rejected Nagaenthran’s bid for clemency, describing it as an abuse of the courtroom’s processes. Nagaenthran’s supporters and household claimed that he had an IQ of simply 69, a degree acknowledged as constituting an mental incapacity, and that he was coerced into carrying a bundle with out understanding that it contained medicine. Nonetheless, in a earlier listening to a courtroom dominated that the declare couldn’t be substantiated, and that Nagaenthran knew that he was violating Singapore’s Misuse of Medication Act.

A courtroom on Tuesday additionally rejected an eleventh-hour movement, filed on Monday by Nagaenthran’s mom Panchalai Supermaniam. The attraction argued that Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, who has presided over a variety of Nagaenthran’s failed appeals, ought to not have achieved so, provided that he was Legal professional-Normal on the time of his conviction in 2010, creating a possible battle of curiosity.

Nagaenthran’s execution adopted that of Abdul Kahar Othman, a 68-year-old Malaysian nationwide, whose hanging on drug costs in late March broke a two-year hiatus of executions as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.

Because the virus wanes, activists now worry a wave of hangings as Singaporean authorities search to make up for misplaced time. Earlier this week, the U.N. Human Rights Workplace expressed its concern over “what seems to be an alarming acceleration in execution notices within the nation.” Datchinamurthy Kataiah, one other Malaysian who was arrested in 2011 and convicted on costs of trafficking diamorphine into Singapore, is scheduled to be hanged on Friday, whereas three different loss of life row convicts not too long ago had their appeals rejected.

Anti-death penalty activist Kirsten Han wrote in her e-newsletter final week that Singapore’s authorities was bent on clearing its “backlog” of loss of life penalty instances, regardless of a small however rising groundswell of opposition. “The federal government appears to be doubling down on their dedication to the loss of life penalty and executions,” she wrote, “however we aren’t giving up.”