Before the month of July is out, some 10 convicts on death row in Singapore’s Changi Prison – where Australian Nguyen Tuong Van was executed in December 2005 – will meet their fate.
Because of the sensitive nature of the executions, Singapore's newspapers have made only scant mention of the impending deaths.
In Singapore, executions are usually carried out at six o'clock on a Friday morning, when most of the city-state is still asleep. The chosen date is usually about two weeks after the state president has rejected the clemency appeals of the condemned men.
That suggests they will be killed by the state this Friday.
The last time Singapore executed a large group of men at the same time was 1975, when seven convicted murderers, including two brothers, were hanged. Before that, in 1966, 18 men died at the hands of hangman Dharshan Singh for their roles in the murder of a prison superintendent and his assistants. They were hanged in threes.
But unlike the earlier cases, which dealt purely with murderers, the 2019 men are all drug dealers.
Four of the condemned in the group are Malaysian drug smugglers, whose nation is reconsidering the death penalty for drug dealers, arguing that it is not an effective deterrent.
But across the border in Singapore – which was once part of Malaysia – no such questions are being asked.
The only thing that the families of the condemned men can now hope for, between now and Friday, is a last-minute reprieve.
The large number of rejections of amnesty pleas is shocking.
This would not be unprecedented. The lives of convicted drug dealers Yong Vui Kong, Subashkaran Pragasam, Yip Mun Hei and Dinesh Pillai were spared in 2013 and 2014, some on the grounds of mental illness, others because they had substantially helped drug enforcement agents attack narcotics operations in south-east Asia.
But what, perhaps, is on trial here is not just the fate of the condemned men but the judicial system itself and how it administers mercy pleas. The large number of rejections of amnesty pleas is shocking.
Singapore’s constitution states that the president can commute the sentences of prisoners.
But the oddity is that the president always seeks the advice of the nation’s cabinet, which in turn confers with the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) – the same office that prosecuted the defendants in the first place.
It seems unlikely that the AGC would contradict itself when presenting its findings to the cabinet and later to the state president.
A recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime stated that the drug trade continues to flourish in south-east Asia. Lawyers, speaking anonymously, confirm this is the case in Singapore.
This says either that Asia's drug cartel is a well-oiled machine that is able to outfox everybody, or that judicial methods aimed at eradicating the menace have proven to be inadequate.
Malaysia appears to have come to this conclusion already.
But none of that has yet dawned on Singapore.
As it stands, the hapless men in Cluster A of Singapore’s maximum security prison in Changi have little less than a week to live.
Theirs appears to be a lost cause. We can only wonder how they will pass the time until they face their end.
Source: smh.com.au, Opinion, James Arokiasamy, July 22, 2019. James Arokiasamy is a pseudonym for a writer based in Singapore.
Lawyer: Singapore acting like N. Korea in treatment of Malaysian death row inmate with mental disability
Lawyers for Liberty legal adviser N. Surendran today likened Singapore to North Korea in its treatment of mentally challenged inmate on death row, Nagaenthran Dharmalingam.
Surendran said executing a mentally challenged man was against international law and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Singapore had ratified.
“It is beyond dispute that he suffers from mental disability and the evaluation was made by an independent psychiatrist and the evidence has been submitted to court,” he told a press conference here today.
“Singapore is putting itself in the same category as Iran or North Korea in sentencing to death or putting on death row a mentally challenged individual. This is a matter of grave seriousness” he said.
Surendran said Nagaenthran or Naga, 31 was found to have an IQ of 69.
"This means he has an “extremely low range of functioning” and has borderline intellectual functions," he said.
Naga’s condition was also assessed by an independent and prominent psychiatrist, Dr Ken Ung Eng Khean, who diagnosed him with mental and intellectual impairment.
The Singapore courts hired 3 psychiatrists of their own and two of them concurred that Naga suffers from a mild form of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) of the inattentive type where his executive functioning skills are impaired.
The 3rd psychiatrist Dr Koh Wun Wu’s expert evidence was made without further independent medical examination of Naga, but was made from reading the reports of the other 2 state psychiatrists.
“In considering the views of psychiatrists, the State (Singapore) has been shown to be inherently biased in its attitude towards independent psychiatrists. This is highly prejudicial to the accused persons and accordingly breaches their rights to a fair trial.
“The very fact they rejected the report and condemned Naga’s mental disability is indicative of the state of Singapore and their judicial attitude towards drug offenders and offences.
“So how do our citizens get a fair trial in Singapore?” Surendran asked.
Naga was 21 when he was caught while entering Singapore from Malaysia at Woodlands Checkpoint with a bundle of diamorphine, or heroin, strapped to his thigh.
He admitted that he knew the bundle contained heroin, explaining at the time that a friend known only as "King" had strapped it to his thigh so that no one would find it.
Naga has been in prison for a decade with 8 of those years served under death row.
LFL decided to help Naga and has been collaborating with Singaporean lawyer and human rights activist M. Ravi, who represents Naga’s family.
“The institutions are all under the thumb of the executive in Singapore that goes for the state psychiatrists also,” said Ravi, who was present today.
“They accept in total whatever is said by the state, but fight tooth and nail the diagnosis of independent and highly qualified medical practitioners.
“This is wrong as there are manuals on the death penalty trials where this practice is unacceptable in criminal trials. Each psychiatrist, be they from the State or otherwise, must base their findings on the side of objectivity.
"They must look at the medical reports. If not we can send the report to someone in the United States and they can also come to their own conclusions,” added Ravi in addressing Dr Koh’s recommendations without ever seeing Naga himself.
Since being in prison, Naga’s 1st appeal was to be re-sentenced under amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act that were passed in 2012.
The amendments allow a court to sentence a drug offender to life imprisonment instead of death if they were merely a courier, on the condition that the public prosecutor issues the offender a certificate of substantive assistance — for helping Central Narcotics Bureau of Singapore to disrupt drug trafficking activities.
Additionally, the court must also sentence the offender to life imprisonment if he or she was merely a courier and also suffering from an abnormality of the mind.
Despite Naga’s obvious mental disability, the High Court Judge and the Court of Appeal opined that borderline intellectual functioning was insufficient to qualify Naga as suffering from an “abnormality of the mind".
In May, Singapore’s Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said it is “not tenable” for Singapore to go easy on Malaysian drug offenders who are caught in Singapore.
He said the majority of Singaporeans favour the death penalty and it would be good for both sides if drug traffickers were caught by Malaysian authorities, as the offenders could be dealt with according to Malaysia’s laws and not have to worry about Singapore’s capital punishment.
“Shanmugam said we can’t go easy on Malaysians, so I want to ask him if he’s going to execute someone with mental disability?” asked Narendran.
A clemency application has been sent to Singapore to save Naga, but since 1998, Singapore has granted no clemency for anyone and the likelihood of Naga being saved is slim.
LFL and Ravi have urged the Malaysian government to intervene, calling it an act of ‘barbarism’ from Singapore.
They want Putrajaya to file a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The ICJ will apply international conventions, international customs, general principles of law recognised by civilised nations, judicial decisions and teachings of the most highly qualified publicist as a means for determining the rules of law in accordance with Article 38(1)(a) and (b) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ Statute).
Meanwhile, Naga’s mother Ranchalai Subramaniam, 57, pleaded to the media to save her son.
“Please save him. My son knowingly or unknowingly has made a mistake. We’re from a very difficult background and we all love him very much.
“He mixed with some people and ended up like this. Somehow please save him,” was all she could say as she teared up.
Source: malaymail.com, Staff, July 23, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
