A Christian Pleads for Her Brother’s Life on Singapore’s Death Row

Convicted on drug trafficking charges, Malaysian Pannir Selvam Pranthaman was baptized in prison.

September 3, 2014, felt like any other ordinary day for Angelia Pranthaman—until the Malaysian national found out that Singapore’s police had arrested her older brother Pannir Selvam Pranthaman for trafficking drugs into the Southeast Asian country.

Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers stopped 27-year-old Pannir for a random search as he tried to cross the Malaysia-Singapore border at Woodlands Checkpoint, the world’s busiest land crossing. The officers discovered he was carrying diamorphine, or heroin.

Three years later, the High Court of Singapore convicted Pannir of importing 51.84 grams of heroin from Malaysia to Singapore and sentenced him to death, setting the execution for May 24, 2019.

But Pannir did not die that day and has remained on death row for the past eight years after experiencing two stays of execution.

Singapore is one of 34 countries in the world—like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China—that punish drug offenses with a mandatory death penalty.

On September 5, Singapore’s Court of Appeal dismissed Pannir’s most recent bid to halt his execution. This means that Pannir is again “at risk” of receiving an execution notice, Angelia told Union of Catholic Asian News.

Angelia felt heartbroken and deeply disappointed when she received news of the court ruling. “This decision was devastating,” she told Christianity Today. “At the same time, we felt a strange sense of calmness because we knew that God was still powerful even in this painful moment.”

Singapore is one of 34 countries in the world—like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China—that punish drug offenses with a mandatory death penalty, which the country introduced in 1973. It has one of the world’s strictest drug laws—anyone caught trafficking 15 grams of heroin, 30 grams of cocaine, 250 grams of methamphetamine, or 500 grams of cannabis will face capital punishment.

Many Singaporean evangelicals in the country favor the death penalty, as they consider it a helpful and even necessary deterrent to the proliferation of drug-related crimes in the country. More than two-thirds (74.6%) of Protestants supported capital punishment, a 2018 research project revealed.

In Malaysia, some Christians feel otherwise, noting there is room to practice greater compassion in the criminal justice system. Just over half (54%) of Malaysian Protestants are not opposed to abolishing the mandatory death penalty, according to a 2013 survey. Two years ago, the country scrapped the mandatory death penalty for serious crimes, including drug trafficking.

To Angelia, Pannir’s sentence leaves no room for the redemptive arc she has seen in her brother’s life. “No one should be defined by the worst mistake made, and every human life has value and potential for redemption,” Angelia said.

Pannir was born in Ipoh, Malaysia. The son of a pastor, he attended Emmanuel Tamil Assembly Church, where he played the drums, guitar, and keyboard on the worship team.

In 2010, he started working in Singapore while living in the nearby Malaysian city of Johor Bahru.

At a gambling den there, Pannir became friends with a man named Anand, who asked him to transport goods from Malaysia into Singapore. This led to Pannir’s arrest and 2017 conviction, as the Singapore High Court found insufficient evidence to prove Pannir was unaware of the contents of the goods he had transported.

The 2017 court judgment noted several inconsistencies in Pannir’s statements, which led the judge to question whether he was a “truthful witness.” For instance, Pannir originally said he had transported the goods because he needed money, but he later claimed it was Anand facing financial difficulties.

Pannir also initially said he did not know what goods he was carrying, but he later claimed they were drugs or aphrodisiacs.

Source: Christianity Today, Eliannah Yeo, September 18, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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