A mentally handicapped Malaysian is to be hanged next week in Singapore after the rejection of a final appeal, his sister announced on Wednesday April 20, despite international mobilization to support him.
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Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam’s family has been informed that he will be executed next Wednesday, his sister Sarmila Dharmalingam told AFP. Members of his family, including his mother and three siblings, will travel to the city-state to visit him ahead of the execution, she said.
Nagaenthran was arrested in 2009 at the age of 21 in possession of a small amount of drugs and was sentenced to death a year later. Calls for clemency have multiplied, from the European Union to British billionaire Richard Branson. The long legal battle finally ended last month with the dismissal of a final appeal, as judges dismissed the defense’s argument that executing a man with a mental disability violates international law.
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“Dishonor”
Mr. Ravi, a human rights lawyer working on the case, said the news of Nagaenthran’s impending execution was “heartbreaking“. “The Singaporean state can never recover from the international dishonor it will suffer by hanging an intellectually disabled person“, he wrote in a post on social networks.
In March, Singapore carried out its first execution since 2019 with the hanging of a drug trafficker, raising fears that more executions will follow in the coming months. In addition to Nagaenthran, three other men convicted of drug trafficking have seen their final appeal rejected. Nagaenthran was arrested in 2009 at the age of 21 with 43 grams of heroin strapped to his thigh upon entering Singapore, which has some of the toughest narcotics laws in the world. His supporters assure that he has an IQ of 69, a level recognized as a handicap, and that he was forced to commit this crime. Singapore retains the death penalty for several crimes, including drug trafficking and murder, saying this has helped it remain one of the safest places in Asia.