But the high-profile case of Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, a mentally impaired death-row inmate with an IQ of 69 in the country’s Changi Prison, really struck a chord with the British billionaire entrepreneur and long-time anti-death-penalty advocate.
Richard Branson, Stephen Fry and Tim Shriver plead for Singapore not to execute intellectually impaired Malaysian man Nagaenthran Dharmalingam.
Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, 34, was arrested 13 years ago for smuggling 42.72 grams of heroin into Singapore from Malaysia. He was later handed a mandatory death sentence and has been on death row for more than a decade.
Now, after an unsuccessful, last-ditch appeal in Singapore’s highest court, Nagaenthran is scheduled to face the gallows at dawn next Wednesday. “It’s devastating news,” the Virgin Group founder in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“What Singapore is planning to do is a violation of the country’s international commitments to protect the rights of people with disabilities.
“Executing Nagen would be a tragic injustice and a dark stain on Singapore’s international reputation,” Branson said.
The campaign to spare Nagaenthran’s life has cast the spotlight on the Southeast Asian nation’s use of capital punishment, which it has resumed carrying out after a 2-year hiatus.
His legal team had tried to have his sentence commuted on the basis of an intellectual disability and last month submitted a new medical report by Australian consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Danny Sullivan that concluded he had “borderline intellectual functioning which was likely to have been causally associated with his offending”. Sullivan is the executive director of clinical services at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health.
The appeal was dismissed, however, by a five-judge panel in the Court of Appeal and this week his family in Malaysia was informed he is to be executed next week.
His supporters say his condition has deteriorated further during his years in jail and he has little idea of what is ahead of him.
“He can’t really grasp any of this,” his Malaysian lawyer N Surendran said on Friday. “He just wants to know when he’s going home. He doesn’t seem to know that’s going to die.”
It was in November that Branson learnt of Nagaenthran’s approaching hanging, and decided to get involved. The case stood out to him “on so many levels”, he said, not simply because of the Malaysian man’s mental capacity and his broader opposition to capital punishment. “No one should face death for carrying 42 grams of heroin,” he said.
“When it comes to the death penalty in Singapore, it is clear to me that it’s no deterrent to crime, but it may well be a deterrent to those seeking to invest and trade in the future.”
Branson launched a public appeal for Nagaenthran’s life and, privately, wrote to Singaporean President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong pleading for clemency.
“The response I received from someone deep inside the Home Affairs Ministry was a laundry list of unconnected thoughts on drug use and crime in the West and a rejection of Nagen’s intellectual disability case. And reiterating the law governing the death penalty for drug offences, as the letter did, isn’t evidence that the approach is working,” Branson said.
Until last month, the city-state hadn’t actually carried out an execution since 2019. But on March 30, Abdul Kahar bin Othman, a 68-year-old Singaporean, was hanged at Changi, also on drug trafficking offences.
And while other Southeast Asian nations such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have unofficial moratoriums on delivering the death penalty despite still handing out such sentences, Singapore now appears to be on an execution scheduling spree.
Since February execution dates have been set for 5 prisoners including Nagaenthran, the latest on Thursday when the family of another Malaysian drug trafficker – Datchinamurthy Kataiah – was informed by the Prison Service that he was to be hanged next Friday.
The Lee government has strongly defended Nagaenthran’s treatment, saying he had been afforded due process and the courts had determined he was “not intellectually disabled” and that he “knew what he was doing” when, as a 21-year-old, he strapped the drugs to his thigh and attempted to cross the border from Malaysia. Judges also rejected Nagaenthran’s account of being coerced to carry out the crime.
As for the amount of drugs he had on him, the ministry has stressed that 42.72 grams was enough for 3560 straws of heroin – “sufficient to feed the addiction of about 510 abusers for a week”.
As time runs out for Nagaenthran, Branson is joining a desperate final bid to have the sentence downgraded. Appearing alongside British actor Stephen Fry in a video released on Friday by anti-death-penalty group Reprieve, he again urged Singaporean authorities to show leniency.
In his interview with the Herald and The Age, he even appealed to the Malaysian government to lobby for a prisoner swap with Singapore to save Nagaenthran.
“Malaysia can negotiate Nagen’s transfer back to his home country, so that his family can give him the support he needs,” Branson said. “There are clear examples of prisoner transfers taking place with huge benefits to the prisoner and their family, especially when the prisoner is in a particularly vulnerable situation like Nagen is.
“I know Malaysian authorities, and the people of Malaysia, have stood behind Nagen and appealed for his life to be saved, and I hope they can bring him home.”
Branson also warned of potential financial ramifications for Singapore if it does go ahead with the execution.
His own business links with the city-state aren’t as substantial as they once were a decade ago, when government-owned Singapore Airlines had a 49 per cent stake in Virgin Atlantic.
However, having founded a campaign last year called Business Leaders Against the Death Penalty, he believes others could rethink their association with the financial hub.
“It’s not far-fetched to suggest that Singapore’s handling of the death penalty – the lack of transparency, the disregard for international norms and commitments, the harassment of lawyers and human rights defenders – is far from what you expect from a nation professing its commitment to the rule of law,” Branson said. “And some in business may be prompted to wonder what this could imply for the protection of their interests, investments, and relationships should they ever encounter the justice system and depend on fairness and due process.
“At the end of the day, all of us in business depend on functioning institutions and good governance. When it comes to the death penalty in Singapore, it is clear to me that it’s no deterrent to crime, but it may well be a deterrent to those seeking to invest and trade in the future.”
Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Staff, April 22
Imminent double execution of Malaysian men must be halted
“The planned execution of 2 Malaysian men in Singapore next week, both convicted of drug-related offences, is unconscionable. But it is not too late for the authorities to grant both men clemency and cease the shameful series of unlawful executions in Singapore, following the hanging of Abdul Kahar bin Othman last month.
“Nagaenthran is set to be hanged despite multiple experts finding he had an intellectual disability which may have impacted his right to a fair trial. There are also concerns about his present mental health state, as his cognitive function appears to have been severely impaired after years in detention.
“Singapore’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and his cabinet must seize this last chance to spare Nagaenthran’s life. The government must also halt the execution of another man due to be hanged two days later, despite the fact he still has a legal challenge pending in court in May.
“We urge the authorities to establish an official moratorium on all executions and revise the scope of the death penalty for drug-related offences as first moves towards its full abolition. The death penalty will never solve problems associated with drugs in Singapore.”
Background
Malaysian national Nagaenthran Dharmalingam’s execution has been set for 27 April. His 2nd petition for clemency was rejected on 31 March, as communicated by letter to his family. On 29 March, a Singapore court had upheld his death sentence, despite medical experts finding that he had an intellectual disability.
His appeal was one of his last opportunities for him to be spared execution. In the ruling, the court rejected arguments about the decline of his mental state, and they have similarly dismissed challenges based on his intellectual ability.
International human rights law and standards prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for drug-related offences and as the mandatory punishment for any offences.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities prohibits the execution of the death penalty on persons whose mental and intellectual disabilities may have had their effective defence impeded.
Another Malaysian man is also set to be executed on 29 April after he was sentenced to mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences, despite a legal challenge he has pending at a Singapore court, for which there is a hearing in May. International safeguards guaranteeing protections of the rights of those facing the death penalty state that executions may not be carried out pending any appeal or other recourse procedure.
Abdul Kahar bin Othman was executed on 30 March 2021 after being sentenced to the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences – the first known execution in Singapore since November 2019.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally, in all cases and under any circumstances. More than two-thirds of countries all over the world have abolished the punishment in law or practice.
Source: Amnesty International, Staff, April 22, 2022
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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
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde