MALAYSIAN death row inmate Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam is scheduled to be executed in Singapore on April 27, said his lawyer M. Ravi.
In calling the news “heartbreaking” Ravi claimed that Singapore would not recover from the international “disgrace” it would face in hanging an intellectually disable person.
“Just received the heartbreaking news that Nagaenthran will be hanged next Wednesday,” the prominent human rights lawyers said in a Facebook post on Wednesday (April 20).
The execution of the sentence against Nagaenthran comes after a Singapore court rejected his final appeal against the death sentence imposed for drug trafficking on March 29.
He was detained in 2009 and convicted of trafficking 42.72g of heroin in 2010, a crime punishable by the mandatory death penalty in Singapore.
His appeal against conviction and sentence were dismissed in 2011.
In 2017, the High Court in Singapore ruled that the 34-year-old Malaysian did not qualify to be given life imprisonment based on evidence from four psychological and psychiatric experts.
Nagaenthran’s case drew public attention in October last year after a letter from the Singapore Prison Service of his pending execution on Nov 10 was sent to his mother in Ipoh.
The letter, which was posted on social media, drew calls for clemency against the death sentence both locally and from abroad.
A last-minute effort to halt the execution was mounted by his former lawyer Ravi who contended that Nagaenthran had the “mental age” of a person below 18 years old.
However, an effort to gain leave to start judicial review proceedings challenging Nagenthren’s death sentence was dismissed by the High Court.
He then appealed to the Court of Appeal, which was dismissed on March 29 this year. – April 20, 2022
Photo credit: BBC
