A Singaporean court yesterday put the execution of a Malaysian man in a drug trafficking case on hold after a last-ditch legal challenge, his lawyer said, following criticism from campaigners who say he is mentally disabled.
Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam was arrested in 2009 for carrying 43g — about 3 tablespoons — of heroin into the city-state, which has some of the world’s toughest anti-drugs laws.
He was sentenced to death the following year and was due to be hanged tomorrow after losing several appeals, despite supporters’ claims his intellectual disability means he cannot make rational decisions.
Photo: AFP
However, the Singapore High Court yesterday agreed to postpone the execution pending a new appeal from his lawyers, who are arguing that the hanging would be unconstitutional.
“Good news,” Nagaenthran’s lawyer, M. Ravi, wrote on Facebook, alongside the hashtags #End
CrimeNotLife and #DivineJustice.
The case is now to head to the Court of Appeal for further hearings. It was not immediately clear how long the execution would be halted.
Rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have labeled the planned execution “despicable” and “cruel,” while the EU at the weekend urged the city-state to commute the sentence.
More than 200 family members and friends of prisoners who have lived on death row in Singapore have also called for Nagaenthran to be spared, and for the death penalty to be abolished.
“There are no words to describe the pain of having a loved one on death row. Perhaps that is why we don’t often speak of it, and our suffering goes unnoticed,” they wrote in an open letter published by the Transformative Justice Collective.
“Nagen’s family has been unable to visit him for two years, during the pandemic border closure, and with two weeks’ notice that their worst nightmare has arrived, they have to scramble to see him through a glass wall for just a few days before the date of execution,” they said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob wrote to his Singapore counterpart urging the execution to be postponed on “humanitarian grounds,” reports said.
If it goes ahead, it will the first hanging since 2019 in Singapore, which defends its use of capital punishment as an effective deterrent against crime, in spite of mounting calls for its abolition.
Supporters say Nagaenthran has an IQ of 69, a level recognized as an intellectual disability, and was struggling with an alcohol problem at the time of the crime.
However, the Singaporean Ministry of Home Affairs has said that the legal rulings had found he “knew what he was doing” at the time of the offense.
Additional reporting by the Guardian
RALLYING CRY: Former US president Donald Trump has raised suspicions about why Chinese migrants are going to the US and advocacy groups worry about his rhetoric The US Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday said that it sent 116 Chinese migrants from the US back home in the first “large charter flight” in five years. The flight, which happened over the weekend, comes as Chinese immigration has become the subject of intense political debate in the upcoming US presidential election. “We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. The department said it was working with China to “reduce and deter irregular migration and to disrupt
‘ONE FELL SWOOP’: Overturning a landmark ruling that said judges should defer to experts would ‘cause a massive shock to the legal system,’ a dissenting opinion said Prosecutors overstepped in charging Jan. 6, 2021, rioters with obstruction for trying to prevent certification of the 2020 presidential election, the US Supreme Court said on Friday, throwing hundreds of cases into doubt, while another controversial ruling struck down 40 years of legal precedent on federal agencies’ ability to regulate critical issues. The matter was brought to the court through an appeal by former police officer Joseph Fischer, a supporter of former US president Donald Trump who entered the Capitol with hundreds of others in 2021. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said prosecutors’ interpretation of the law would “criminalize
The US yesterday wrapped up its first multidomain exercise with Japan and South Korea in the East China Sea, a step forward in Washington’s efforts to enhance and lock in its security partnerships with key Asian allies in the face of growing threats from North Korea and China. The three-day Freedom Edge increased the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic-missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other skills and capabilities. The exercise, which is expected to expand in years to come, was also intended to improve the countries’ abilities to share missile warnings —
ELECTION JITTERS: After a call with the party’s leadership, a DNC member said they were being asked to ignore the party’s dire predicament after last week’s debate US President Joe Biden on Saturday attended a triple-header of campaign fundraisers, seeking to reassure high-dollar donors he can still win re-election in November despite a debate performance that sparked panic among many Democrats. Accompanying him at the fundraisers in New York and New Jersey was first lady Jill Biden, who has fiercely defended her 81-year-old husband amid calls for him to step aside. “Joe isn’t just the right person for the job — he’s the only person for the job,” she told one gathering, which featured actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick among the cohosts. The president is facing a wave