The mother of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, the man on death row in Singapore who is scheduled to be executed next week, has pleaded with the authorities and lawyers to save her son.
“Nagaenthran. Save him. Only then there will be some relief. Sorry, he has done wrong. Everyone, please help.” This is what the mother, Panchalai Supermaniam, said in Malay, translated into English.
She sent the message in a short video posted by Singaporean lawyer M. Ravi to his own Facebook page. The video was made by a human rights charity organisation called Reprieve.
M Ravi said on Wednesday (April 20) that his former client, whom he insists has “severe mental disabilities”, was due to die in Singapore on April 27. It confirmed what he had said in an earlier posting: “Just received the heartbreaking news that Nagaenthran will be hanged next Wednesday”.
The condemned man was found guilty of drug trafficking in 2010, and his petition for a stay of execution due to “mental impairment” was denied in March 2022.
In February, British magnate Richard Branson had spoken out in support of Nagaenthran, an Indian Malaysian from Perak, convicted of trafficking 42.72 gm of heroin in April 2009. It’s the second time the billionaire had launched such an appeal.
Mr Branson joined a rising chorus of voices urging Singapore’s President Halimah Yacob to pardon Nagaenthran. So far, there has been no sign that there will be a pardon.
Three weeks ago, a Singapore court rejected the condemned man’s appeal and also accused his attorneys of abuse of court proceedings.
After his clemency petition was rejected last year, he was scheduled to be executed on Nov 10, 2021, after spending 11 years on death row.
Then another last-minute appeal was made around that time and Nagaenthran’s execution was postponed after he was found to have tested positive for Covid-19.
Now 34, Nagaenthran has already spent more than a dozen years – or more than a third of his life – behind bars. He had entered Singapore in 2009 through Woodlands Checkpoint, with a pack of heroin strapped to his thigh.
The post The mother of a Malaysian man on death row in Singapore begs for his life appeared first on The Independent News.
Malaysian King appealed to President Halimah Yacob for clemency in Nagaenthran’s case