Singapore — On the eve of Deepavali, the Festival of Lights, lawyers, human rights activists and others are making last-ditch efforts to save Malaysian drug mule, Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, from the gallows.
Nagaenthran, 33, who has a low IQ of 69, is scheduled to be executed in Changi Prison on Nov 10. He was arrested in 2009 when he entered Singapore from Malaysia with 42.72 gm of heroin tied to one leg.
He could be the first prisoner on death row here to be hanged since 2019. The Singapore Prison Service annual report records zero executions for the whole of 2020.
As of Nov 3, nearly 32,000 had signed the #SaveNagaenthran petition which asks President Halimah Yacob to pardon the man who has already been on death row for more than a decade. The petition was started by human rights lawyer Olivia Seow.
Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) and Malaysia’s Lawyers for Liberty are among those who have condemned Singapore for the death penalty ruling.
At his trial in 2010, Nagaenthran told the court that a man assaulted him and threatened to kill his girlfriend if he did not act as a drug mule for him. Although a psychiatrist in private practice testified in his defence that Nagaenthran was suffering from “an abnormailty of mind at the time of his arrest”, the court did not accept this defence.
Ms Sangkari Pranthaman, sister of Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, another Malaysian prisoner who is also on death row in Singapore for heroin trafficking, wrote in a blogpost:
 “I can’t believe it’s happening again. This time, not only is Singapore taking a human life away, they’re doing it to someone with a mental disability. What an awful piece of news to hear in this modern day and age”.
“I spoke to Nagaenthran’s elder sister Sharmila; she did not have the strength to reveal the truth to her mother that her eldest son is about to be murdered in Changi Prison, the week after Deepavali. Imagine, they will have to live through Deepavali, wallowing in the sorrow of their son’s fate.”
The Singapore Prison Service informed Nagaenthran’s family in a letter dated Oct 26, 2021, that he is scheduled for execution on Nov 10, 2021.
How, she asked, would his family (who live in Ipoh, Malaysia) manage the financial burden to travelling to Singapore, at such short notice. The execution was scheduled even before borders opened, giving the family little time to plan and prepare themselves and make funeral arrangements.
Said Ms Sangkari: “Singapore, where is your heart? Where is your conscience? Do you realise that these events that have transpired, which are wholly under your control, lack a single shred of humanity? Not only have you broken a family into pieces, you are giving them harrowing memories to live with for the rest of their lives.”
Arrested on April 22, 2009 at the age of 21, Nagaenthran was sentenced to death in November 2010. Lawyer M Ravi, who is thought to represent about 25 prisoners on death row, is thought to have filed an application on Tuesday, according to a what he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Ms Sangkari’s post was also shared on Transformative Justice Collective, a collective founded on the principles of transformative justice, and committed to seeking the reform of Singapore’s criminal punishment system, starting with the abolition of the death penalty. /TISG