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TWELVE Malaysian Members of Parliament have jointly appealed to the Singaporean government to delay the imminent execution of Malaysian national Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, who is currently on death row for a 2017 drug trafficking conviction.
The MPs made the appeal following a meeting with Angelia Pranthaman, Pannir’s sister, who has been leading a prolonged clemency campaign seeking to commute his sentence to life imprisonment with support from human rights organisations.
“Pannir is a Malaysian, currently incarcerated in Singapore and on death row for the crime of trafficking 52 grams of drugs. He was sentenced to death in May 2017,” the MPs said in a statement today.
“Since then, his siblings have started a clemency campaign to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment with the assistance of various human rights NGOs.”
They noted that the Singapore Court of Appeal rejected Pannir’s most recent legal challenge on 5 September 2025, leaving him at “high risk of execution in the coming weeks, if not days.”
The MPs contrasted Singapore’s continued use of the death penalty with Malaysia’s recent legal reforms. “In April 2023, the Madani Government took the positive step of abolishing the mandatory death penalty, allowing the Malaysian judiciary greater discretion to convert death sentences to jail terms,” they said. “Since then, Malaysia has halted all executions, earning international goodwill and recognition.”
By comparison, Amnesty International reports that Singapore has executed 16 individuals since October 2024.
The MPs voiced their strong opposition to the mandatory death penalty, stressing its “inherent risk of disproportionately executing minor drug mules, as in Pannir’s case, and its overall incompatibility with human rights.”
They also revealed that in March 2025, Pannir’s family persuaded an independent witness to file a police report in Johor Bahru, implicating two senior figures in a Malaysian drug syndicate who allegedly recruited Pannir as a drug mule.
“We call upon our police to carry out further investigations based on the said police report and urgently update Datuk Seri Panglima Saifuddin Nasution, the Home Minister,” the MPs urged.
They further requested that the Home Minister formally appeal to the Singaporean government for a stay of execution while investigations continue.
“We sincerely hope that these latest efforts will result in the arrests of these leaders of the drug syndicate and convince the Singapore Government to issue to Pannir a Certificate of Substantive Assistance, thus converting his death sentence to life imprisonment.”
The statement was signed by MPs Wong Chen (Subang), Dato’ Seri Mohd Rafizi Ramli (Pandan), Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh (Ledang), Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad (Setiawangsa), Dato’ Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik (Balik Pulau), Yuneswaran Ramaraj (Segamat), Kesavan a/l Subramaniam (Sungai Siput), Tan Kar Hing (Gopeng), Haji Onn Abdul Bakar (Batu Pahat), Lee Chean Chung (Petaling Jaya), Ir. Ts. Zahir Hassan (Wangsa Maju), and Puan Hajah Rodziah Ismail (Ampang). - September 18, 2025