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KUALA LUMPUR – Messages of grief continue in the wee hours today as Singapore schedules the death penalty for Malaysian man Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam at about 6am in Changi Prison.
Pleas made to Singapore President Halimah Yacob for a last-minute clemency have been ignored as the city-state’s appellate court yesterday dismissed the final appeal by Nagaenthran’s mother Panchalai Supermaniam.
Before 9am, Navin Kumar confirmed to Reuters via phone that the execution was carried out on his brother Nagaethran, and that the funeral will be held in Ipoh.
It was a heartbreaking ordeal for the mother and son at the courtroom yesterday as Nagaenthran’s last request to the court was to hold the hands of his family members.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that he addressed the judges – Andrew Phang, Judith Prakash and Belinda Ang – via a translator as he stood in the dock behind a glass panel.
“I’d like to make a last-minute request to spend some time with my family members.
“I’m placing this request so I can hold my family members’ hands. Here in court, Your Honour, I would like to hold my family members’ hands, not in prison. May I please have permission to hold their hands here?” he was quoted as saying.
The court approved his request, and Nagaenthran managed to hold his mother’s hands through a small gap in the glass panel.
He was also allowed to spend two hours with his family in the court basement.
If it had not been for the last-ditch appeal, he would have been spending time with his family for a final visit in prison before his sentence is carried out.
Last night, about 90 people from civil society groups gathered outside the Singapore High Commission here to hold a candlelight vigil for Nagaenthran.
Also, in a judgement delivered last month by the Singapore Court of Appeal, it attributed the decision to uphold Nagaenthran’s execution was due to the lack of evidence on his alleged mental instability as well as his lawyers’ “abuse of court process”.
The appellate court presided by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Phang, Judith, Ang and Chao Hick Tin labelled several legal challenges filed by Nagaenthran’s lawyers as a “blatant and egregious abuse of court process” with the aim of delaying the sentence.
Later, Lawyers for Liberty’s N. Surendran alleged a “serious conflict of interest” relating to Sundaresh, raising the issue that the judge was Singapore’s attorney-general when Nagaenthran was convicted in 2010 and sentenced in 2011, as well as the presiding judge in Nagaenthran’s appeals in 2019 and 2021/22.
However, Nagaenthran’s lawyers were criticised for not bringing up the alleged conflict of interest during the earlier proceedings.
Despite international outcry over the death penalty, Singapore will be hanging another Malaysian man, Datchinamurthy Kataiah, on Friday for drug trafficking. – The Vibes, April 27, 2022
