Nagaenthran Dharmalingam: Campaigners urge Singapore not to execute man with
Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a 33-year-old Malaysian man, was arrested in 2009 for bringing 42.7 grams (1.5 ounces) of heroin into Singapore. He was due to be executed by hanging on Wednesday.
On Monday, the High Court ordered a stay of execution “pending the hearing of the appeal to the Court of Appeal against the decision of the High Court,” his lawyer in Singapore M. Ravi posted on Facebook. Lawyers had sought a prohibitory order against the execution, having exhausted all other legal appeals. A petition to the President for clemency was also unsuccessful.
It is as yet unclear what the next steps are.
Dharmalingam’s lawyers and rights groups fighting to save him say Singapore is violating international law by executing a person with a mental impairment.
However, his lawyers argue that Dharmalingam should not have been sentenced to death under Singaporean law because he was incapable of understanding his actions. A psychologist assessed his IQ to be 69, which is internationally recognized as an intellectual disability. At his trial, the defense also argued he had severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), borderline intellectual functioning, and severe alcohol use disorder.
Dharmalingam has spent a decade on death row and during that time his condition has further deteriorated, his lawyers said.
“He has not a very good sense of what is happening around him,” said N. Surendran, a Malaysian lawyer who is representing Dharmalingam’s family, and adviser to Malaysian NGO Lawyers for Liberty. “He is disoriented. He’s got no real clue of what is going to happen to him.”
Surendran said executing Dharmalingam “would be tantamount to executing a child.”
Singapore has some of the strictest drug laws in the world. Trafficking a certain amount of drugs — for example, 15 grams (0.5 ounces) of heroin — results in a mandatory death sentence under the Misuse of Drugs Act. It was only recently — and after Dharmalingam’s case began — the law was amended to allow for a convicted person to escape the death penalty in certain circumstances.
Dharmalingam was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death by Singapore’s High Court in 2010. His first appeal was dismissed a year later. Another appeal after Singapore amended its drug law was again rejected in 2018.
The court argued Dharmalingam transported drugs “in order to pay off his debts” and he knew it was unlawful so he “attempted to conceal the bundle by strapping it to his left thigh.” It also said Dharmalingam was “continuously altering his account of his education qualifications, ostensibly to reflect lower educational qualifications each time he was interviewed.”
“This was ‘the working of a criminal mind, weighing the risks and countervailing benefits associated with the criminal conduct in question.’ Nagaenthran…
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