Singapore’s top court yesterday dismissed a last-ditch appeal against a death sentence for a mentally disabled Malaysian man.
Nagaenthran Dharmalingam was arrested in 2009 for trafficking a small quantity of heroin and handed a then-mandatory death sentence the following year.
He was originally scheduled to be hanged in November last year, but the plan sparked criticism due to concerns about his intellectual disabilities, with the EU and British billionaire Richard Branson among those condemning it.
Photo: Reuters
The 34-year-old lodged a final appeal, with his lawyers arguing that executing someone with mental disabilities contravened international law.
However, the Singaporean Court of Appeal rejected the challenge, with Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon saying it had “no factual and legal basis,” and domestic legislation takes precedence over international law.
Menon said that Dharmalingam had been “afforded due process” and his defense had put “nothing forward to suggest that he has a case.”
Lawyers were filing “hopeless” motions after several appeals had already been rejected, he said.
Dharmalingam, wearing a purple prison outfit and white mask, looked somber throughout the proceedings.
M. Ravi, a human rights lawyer assisting in the case, said no more appeals would be lodged and the execution could take place in days.
Speaking to reporters from Malaysia, his sister Sarmila Dharmalingam sobbed as she said that the family was “devastated.”
“We are shocked by the court decision despite my brother ... having a low IQ,” Sarmila Dharmalingam said.
His long-running case has been “a horrifying ordeal for us,” she said.
Reprieve, a non-governmental organization that campaigns against the death penalty, said that hanging Nagaenthran Dharmalingam would be a “travesty of justice” that breached Singapore’s commitments to champion the rights of disabled people.
“We urge [Singaporean] President Halimah Yacob to listen to the cries for mercy within Singapore and around the world... and spare the life of this vulnerable man,” Repreive director Maya Foa said.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS