Singapore | Execution of drug mule Pannir Selvam Pranthaman arbitrary, Amnesty International says

Amnesty International and the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) unreservedly condemn the execution of Pannir Selvam Pranthaman in Singapore on 8 October 2025, the latest in a string of arbitrary deprivations of life in the country.

Amnesty International and ADPAN renew their call on the government of Singapore to urgently establish a moratorium on executions as a first step towards full abolition of this cruel punishment.

A Malaysian national, Pannir Selvam Pranthaman was convicted on 2 May 2017 of importing 51.84g of diamorphine (heroin) into Singapore and sentenced to the mandatory death penalty. The use of the death penalty for drug-related offences violates international human rights law and standards, which restrict its use to the “most serious crimes”, most recently interpreted as referring to “crimes of extreme gravity involving intentional killing”. (1)

Several UN bodies, including the International Narcotics Control Board, have repeatedly clarified that drug-related offences do not meet this threshold. (2)

We also remain alarmed by the continued resort, as it was in Pannir Selvam Pranthaman’s case, to the mandatory death penalty, which removes judges’ power to consider the particular circumstances of the offence and the background of the convicted person, also in violation of international law and standards.(3)

In 2017, the High Court found Pannir Selvam Pranthaman to have been involved only in transporting drugs, meeting the “courier” requirement under the Misuse of Drugs Act. However, the prosecution did not provide him with a certificate confirming that he substantively assisted investigations to disrupt further drug trafficking activities – a second condition to qualify for sentencing discretion in these cases – leaving no option to the judge but to impose the mandatory death penalty.

This certificate requirement effectively shifts the sentencing decision to the prosecution in violation of the right to a fair trial, as it effectively places the decision between a life-or-death sentence in the hands of an official who is not a neutral party in the trial and should not have such powers. It further undermines the independence of the judiciary, breaking down the separation that must exist between prosecution and court; and violates the principle of “equality of arms,” namely the equal powers of prosecution and defence before the courts. (4)

Pannir Selvam Pranthaman’s conviction also relied on unfair presumptions of guilt under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which the prosecution can invoke at trial to infer knowledge or possession of the drugs, shifting the burden of proof on to the defendant to be rebutted to the reversed –and therefore higher – legal standard of “on balance of probabilities”.

Legal presumptions of guilt violate the right to be presumed innocent – a peremptory norm of customary international law – and other fair trial guarantees under international human rights law that mandate that the burden of proving all charges rests on the prosecution.(5) In addition, presumptions of guilt have also had the effect of lowering the threshold of evidence needed to secure a conviction in capital cases.

Pannir Selvam Pranthaman’s execution has been riddled by human rights violations and we are alarmed by the continued disregard on the part of the Government of Singapore of international safeguards set out under international law and standards to protect people against the arbitrary deprivation of life. The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, Morris Tidball-Binz, repeatedly warned the government on the unlawfulness of the imminent execution, to no avail. (6)

We also note calls by the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the Malaysia Bar Association on the Singapore government, in which they highlighted the repentance and cooperation tendered by Pannir

Selvam Pranthaman; as well as the principles and restrictions set out under international human rights law and standards applicable to this case. (7)

The international community must not remain silent and take action to hold the Singapore government accountable for the repeated breaches of international safeguards and restrictions carried out in capital cases, including in the name of flawed drug control and security narratives.

Several persons remain at imminent risk of execution in Singapore. We renew our call on the Government of Singapore to immediately establish a moratorium on all executions; commute all death sentences; and review national legislation to bring it in line with international human rights law and standards, pending full abolition of the death penalty.

Footnotes:

Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Safeguard No.1 of the UN Safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty, adopted through UN Economic and Social Council resolution 1984/50.
UN Human Rights Committee, General comment No. 36 (2018) on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to life, UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/36, 30 October 2018, para.35; Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (2012), UN Doc. A/67/275, para.122; UN Chief Executives Board, “What we have learned over the last ten years: A summary of knowledge acquired and produced by the UN system on drug-related matters”, UN Doc. E/CN.7/2019/CRP.10; UN Chief Executives Board, “What we have learned over the last ten years: A summary of knowledge acquired and produced by the UN system on drug-related matters”, UN Doc. E/CN.7/2019/CRP.10; Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2021, UN DOC. E/INCB/2021/1, para. 90.
UN Human Rights Committee, General comment No. 36 (2018) on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to life, CCPR/C/GC/36, 30 October 2018, para.37.
UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 32, Article 14: Right to equality before courts and tribunals and to a fair trial, UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/32, 23 August 2007, para.8.
UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 24: Issues relating to reservations made upon ratification or accession to the Covenant or the Optional Protocols thereto, or in relation to declarations under article 41 of the Covenant (Art. 41), para.
Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, UN expert urges Singapore to halt planned execution of Malaysian national for drug offence, warns it would amount to arbitrary deprivation of life, 7 October 2025.
Commonwealth Lawyers Association, Statement on the scheduled execution of Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, 7 October 2025, https://www.commonwealthlawyers.com/statement/statement-on-the-scheduled-execution-of-pannir-selvam-pranthaman/; Malaysian Bar Association, Malaysian Bar Urges for Intervention to Halt the Impending Execution of Pannir Selvam Pranthaman (Press release), 6 October 2025.

Source: Amnesty International, Staff, October 11, 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

Comments

Alabama executes Jeremy Williams

Tennessee and Oklahoma have put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men in one day. Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985, and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.

Tennessee executes Darrell Hines

The state has spent millions of dollars over decades to execute a seriously ill man who was already incarcerated. The state of Tennessee executed death row inmate Darrell Hines Thursday morning, according to an advocacy group. No formal announcement of the execution has been issued by state leaders yet. The execution was slated for 10 a.m. Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. [DPN update] Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT. His last meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, fries, biscuits, a chicken sandwich, chocolate chip cake, and sweet tea.

Alabama Set To Carry Out Execution This Week

Alabama is preparing to execute Jeremy Williams, who pled guilty to the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland. The execution is scheduled for Thursday (August 13) at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. Williams, who is 41, requested the death penalty and waived his right to appeal, making this the first execution in Alabama this year.

Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument. Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said.

Tennessee set to execute Anthony Darrell Hines

Barring any last-minute interventions, the Tennessee Department of Correction will execute Anthony Darrell Hines by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville Thursday morning. This week, two courts had the opportunity to halt the execution: the federal court in Middle Tennessee and the U.S. Supreme Court. Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday he personally would not prevent the execution. “After deliberate consideration of Anthony Darrell Hines’ request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” he said in a written statement. The U.S. Supreme Court has not granted a stay or reprieve.

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

Iran’s War on Women: Executions, Floggings, and the Politics of Fear

The Iranian regime is increasingly using death sentences, corporal punishment, and judicial persecution against women—not only to silence dissent but also to intimidate a society demanding change. The Iranian regime has long viewed women as central to the country’s struggle for freedom—and therefore as central targets of repression. The nationwide uprising of 2022 fundamentally altered the political landscape, demonstrating that Iranian women were no longer merely participants in protest movements but among their principal organizers and symbols. Since then, the authorities have steadily intensified their campaign against women, expanding the use of executions, imprisonment, corporal punishment, and judicial intimidation.

The 'Black Widow' shakes Iran: 10 death sentences for a serial killer who killed 12 men

Kolthum Akbari, an Iranian woman widely dubbed the “Black Widow,” was convicted of serial murders of elderly men she married, often temporarily. Official accounts generally center on 11 murders (plus one attempted murder), though Akbari herself gave varying figures and investigations suggested she had many more marriages. The sentencing occurred primarily in September 2025 in Mazandaran Province, with ongoing reporting and updates into 2026. The 56- to 59-year-old killer confessed to killing at least 11 elderly men after temporarily or officially marrying them; Iranian authorities have linked her to additional marriages and possible further victims.

Arizona prosecutors seek death penalty a second time for 2 inmates

County Attorney Brad Miller said Aug. 6 that the nature of the attack and both men's past criminal records meet the strict legal bar required for execution under Arizona law. FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against two inmates accused of violently killing a fellow prisoner behind bars, officials announced Thursday. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Pete Van Winkle and Tracy Hampton in connection with the fatal attack on Kenneth Thompson.

Iran | Executions in Tabriz, Zanjan, Qazvin

Iranian authorities executed at least three prisoners, including two Turks, identified as Amrollah Dousti, Hojjat Khayat, and Yousef Bagheri, in Tabriz and Zanjan Central Prisons. Dousti and Khayat were executed on drug-related charges, while Bagheri was executed for “premeditated murder.” According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Dousti, 40, from Bandar Abbas and a father of two, and Khayat, 51, from Tabriz and a father of three, were executed in Tabriz Central Prison on Sunday, August 9, 2026.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog