Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam

Nagaenthran a/l K. Dharmalingam^[a] (born 1988) is a Malaysian Indian who was convicted of trafficking 42.72 grams of heroin in April 2009 upon entering Singapore from Malaysia at Woodlands Checkpoint with a bundle of heroin strapped to his thigh. Nagaenthran confessed to committing the crime, but gave statements claiming that he was ordered to commit the crime out of duress by a mastermind who assaulted him and threatened to kill his girlfriend. He also claimed he did so to get money to pay off his debts before he later denied any knowledge of the contents of his bundle.^[1]

Nagaenthran was sentenced to death by hanging in November 2010. However, his execution was put on hold due to a moratorium placed on all hangings in Singapore pending judicial changes of the mandatory death penalty laws, which considered and approved the imposition of life imprisonment with or without caning for drug traffickers who were couriers or suffering from mental illnesses. Nagaenthran tried to appeal to the courts to revoke his death sentence and instead re-sentence him to life imprisonment on the grounds of low IQ, mental impairment and his defence of duress and tried to challenge the prosecutors' decision to not certify him as a courier, but his appeals were all dismissed. Nagaenthran also lost his appeal for clemency, and he was finally scheduled to hang on 10 November 2021 after spending 11 years on death row.^[2][3] However, due to both a pending last-minute appeal and a positive test result of a COVID-19 infection, Nagaenthran's execution is currently suspended until further notice.^[4][5][6][7]

Nagaenthran's case attracted international attention, with many activists and foreign organizations asking for Singapore to commute Nagaenthran's death sentence to life imprisonment due to his intellectual disability and overall, to abolish the death penalty while condemning Singapore for its use of the death penalty on drug traffickers.^{[8][9][10][11]} The government of Singapore, in response to these pleas, explained that Nagaanethran was not substantially mentally or intellectually impaired despite his low IQ, and hence there was no basis for the government to intervene and commute Nagaenthran's death sentence.^[12]

Criminal conduct[]

The Woodlands Checkpoint, where Nagaenthran was caught importing heroin as he entered Singapore from Malaysia.

Nagaenthran a/l K. Dharmalingam, an ethnic Indian Malaysian and native of Ipoh who has two younger brothers and an elder sister, was arrested on 22 April 2009 at age 21 for trafficking in 42.72 g of diamorphine (pure heroin) when he was travelling from Malaysia to Singapore through the Woodlands Checkpoint. A friend and travelling partner of Nagaenthran, only named Kumarsen, was also arrested but later released. Upon his arrest, Nagaenthran admitted to the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) officers that he knew he was carrying drugs and it was a Chinese friend, whom he called "King", who strapped it to his thigh so that no one would find it. Nagaenthran also claimed that he needed money to pay off his debts, which was why he did the crime. Later however, Nagaenthran retracted his confession and denied having knowledge of the contents of the bundle of drugs found on him. He also later claimed that King had earlier assaulted him and threatened to kill his girlfriend should he never comply to King's demands to transport the drugs. Nevertheless, due to his arrest, Nagaenthran was charged with drug trafficking, which, if found guilty, is punishable by death.

Nagaenthran was tried and found guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced to death by hanging on 22 November 2010. The High Court's judge Chan Seng Onn did not accept Nagaenthran's defence that he was under duress at the time he committed the crime, and thus ruled that Nagaenthran should assume full responsibility of his criminal conduct, since he did so to discharge his financial woes.^[13] His appeal was dismissed on 27 July 2011 by the Court of Appeal's three judges Chan Sek Keong, V. K. Rajah and Andrew Phang.^[14]

Appeals for re-sentencing[]

Legal changes and re-sentencing application[]

A year after Nagaenthran's appeal was dismissed, Singapore decided to amend its death penalty laws in July 2012, which designated a moratorium on all 35 executions in Singapore, including Nagaenthran's. The amendments, which later took effect in January 2013, empowered all judges in Singapore with the discretion to sentence a drug trafficker to life imprisonment with caning not less than 15 strokes instead of death if he was merely a courier, on the condition that the public prosecutor issues the offender a certificate of substantive assistance — for helping the narcotics police to disrupt drug trafficking activities. Another alternative condition to receive life imprisonment was diminished responsibility; should any mental illnesses were diagnosed and found to have substantially impaired one's mental faculties, he will also be ineligible for the death sentence; caning would also not be given. The reforms allowed some high-profile drug traffickers like Yong Vui Kong and Cheong Chun Yin to be removed from death row, serving life sentences with caning since 2013 and 2015 respectively.^{[15][16][17][18][19]} This also allowed to become the first drug trafficker to be convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment (albeit with 24 strokes of the cane) under the new death penalty laws after the prosecution certified him as a courier in his trial on 10 April of that same year the new laws were passed. At the same time, it made Abdul Haleem's accomplice and friend , who was not a certified drug mule and thus ineligible for life imprisonment, the first drug offender to be convicted and sentenced to death under the newly enacted laws. Ridzuan was hanged four years later on 19 May 2017 after he failed to overturn his death sentence through multiple attempts of appeal.^[20][21]

When the new death penalty laws took effect in January 2013, Nagaenthran applied for re-sentencing on account of clinical mental retardation and mental illness, and his case was sent back to the original trial judge Chan Seng Onn for review in the High Court. However, a psychiatric report concluded that Nagaenthran was suffering from neither of the above (even though his low IQ of 69 made him prone to believing King's supposed threat of murdering his girlfriend). He was also not issued a certificate of substantive assistance by the CNB, since he did not substantively assist them in disrupting the drug trafficking activities. Despite so, on 24 February 2015, Nagaenthran brought forward the application and tried to ask for mercy on behalf of his conditions of an intellectual disability and a low IQ, impaired executive functioning and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which made him ineligible for the death penalty. The High Court, after reviewing Nagaenthran's case, decided to dismiss his two appeals in 2017 and 2018 respectively.^[22][23]

Court appeals and plea for clemency[]

After the High Court dismissed Nagaenthran's appeal for re-sentencing, Nagaenthran, through his lawyer Eugene Thuraisingam, filed two separate appeals to ask for the Court of Appeal to commute his sentence under the newly enacted death penalty laws, but the five-judge Court of Appeal dismissed both Nagaenthran's appeals on 27 May 2019, condemning Nagaenthran to hang for his crime. The Court of Appeal stated that there were numerous inconsistencies in Nagaenthran's account of his crime, which made it hard to rely on his defences given that they affected his credibility. The five judges - Sundaresh Menon, Belinda Ang, Andrew Phang, Judith Prakash, and Chao Hick Tin - held that Nagaenthran may have low IQ, but his mental responsibility for his offence was not substantially impaired. He was able to plan and organise on simpler terms, and was relatively adept at living independently.

Besides, Nagaenthran had known that it was unlawful for him to import heroin, and hid the drugs to avoid detection. He was also prone to being manipulative and evasive, as shown from his initial attempts to avoid being searched before the narcotics officers arrested him in 2009. Additionally, he was earlier found to have done this with the intention of paying off some of his debts, and his actions were deliberate, calculated and purposeful, which was “the working of a criminal mind” who could weigh the benefits and risks, and the concept of right or wrong. Hence, Nagaenthran lost his final bid to be re-sentenced.^[24][25][26]

Nagaenthran later appealed to the President of Singapore Halimah Yacob for clemency, which would have commuted his sentence to life imprisonment if successful, but his plea was rejected on 1 June 2020, which finalized his death sentence.^[27] The last time clemency was granted in Singapore was in 1998, when 19-year-old Mathavakannan Kalimuthu was pardoned from execution despite being sentenced to hang for murdering a gangster in 1996. Mathavakannan was paroled and released in 2012 after serving 16 years of his life sentence due to good behaviour.^[28][29]

During the time Nagaenthran was appealing for clemency, his case attracted attention internationally and many who opposed the death penalty asked Singapore to spare Nagaenthran’s life; Nagaenthran’s mother Ranchalai Subramaniam^[b] (aged 57 in 2019) and family also joined in the efforts to plead for mercy. In a 2019 news report, Malaysian human rights lawyer N Surendran denounced Singapore for unfairly subjecting a mentally challenged man to a death sentence, and he, together with Nagaenthran's new lawyer M Ravi argued that there was no fair trial for Nagaenthran since his defence's psychiatric evidence (presented by Dr Ken Ung Eng Thean) was allegedly not fully considered compared to the reports of the prosecution's psychiatrists.^[30]

Singapore's law minister K Shanmugam, in light of prior accusations that Singapore was unfairly mistreating Malaysian drug traffickers (due to the increasing number of Malaysians being executed for drug trafficking), argued that there is no inequality in treating foreigners and locals under the law for drug trafficking. He said the majority of Singaporeans favour the death penalty and it would be good for both sides if drug traffickers were caught by Malaysian authorities, as the offenders could be dealt with according to Malaysia’s laws and not have to worry about Singapore’s capital punishment. Shanmugam emphasised that there should be no special treatment to Malaysian death row prisoners as it would undermine the integrity of Singapore's law.^[31][32]

Death warrant and scheduled execution[]

Confirmation of execution date[]

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore since January 2020, there was an informal moratorium on executions, including Nagaenthran's execution, possibly out of fear of spreading infections in Singapore's Changi Prison, where all death row inmates, including Nagaenthran, were held on death row. This allowed Nagaenthran to live for at least one more year after his failed clemency appeal.

On 28 October 2021, in Nagaenthran's hometown in Ipoh, Nagaenthran's family received a letter (dated 26 October 2021) from the Singapore Prison Service (SPS), which informed them that Nagaenthran's execution date was scheduled on 10 November 2021. SPS also stated they will facilitate and help explain the travelling arrangements to any of Nagaenthran's family members on the necessary procedures on quarantine and COVID-19 tests, as well as allowing the family to have extended daily visits with a prolonged duration of a few hours and a maximum of five vistors per visit to curb possible risks of COVID-19 infection within the prison walls, due to Singapore's worsening rate of local transmission within the community (affected by the mutated Delta variant).^[33][34]

There are fifty more people still on death row pending their executions as of the time Nagaenthran was ordered to be hanged.^[35] At the time Nagaenthran's death warrant was finalized, the last execution to be conducted in Singapore was on 22 November 2019, when 36-year-old Abd Helmi Ab Halim was executed for trafficking over 16g of heroin in 2015 despite appeals from Malaysia to commute his sentence.^[36][37][38]

Efforts to save Nagaenthran[]

Upon receiving news of the death warrant, Malaysian lawyers and both international and local anti-death penalty activists - including World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and FIDH - tried to appeal to the Singapore government for clemency, reiterating that Nagaenthran was mentally disabled and should not be hanged for his crime since he could not understand what he was going through, as well as insisting on his innocence. An online petition was made to plead to Halimah Yacob to spare the Malaysian's life, garnering more than 96,000 signatures.^[39] There is an intention to bring forward the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Singapore for not conforming with the international norms to not practice the death penalty. There are also concerns that Nagaenthran's execution might violate international human rights and law, which rules that any mentally unfit capital offenders should not be executed. In USA, Divisions of Social Justice of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) called Nagaenthran's case a "flagrant breach" of human rights. Aside from this, there were repeated calls from these human rights groups to pressurise Singapore to abolish the death penalty.^{[40][41][42][43][44][45][46]}

Public figures like Singaporean rapper-musician and British billionaire Richard Branson, as well as more than 200 friends and family members of other death row convicts (including those executed prior) like Angelia Pranthaman (sister of condemned drug trafficker Pannir Selvam Pranthaman) and the relatives of executed killer Kho Jabing, have also asked for Singapore to show mercy on Nagaenthran.^{[47][48][49][50][51]} Nagaenthran's lawyer M Ravi also called for Singapore to grant clemency to Nagaenthran based on his client's disability and asked for public support through a Facebook livestream.^[52] Protests were made outside Malaysia's Parliament at Kuala Lumpur for more efforts from the Malaysian government to stop the execution.^[53]

Nagaenthran's sister Sarmila Dharmalingam^[c] said she and her siblings had been delaying the news of their brother's execution from their mother, and did not provide any reasons why she had to travel to Singapore. They only told her five days after the letter arrived at Ipoh, and Nagaenthran's mother took the news badly.^[54] There were also diplomats sent by the Malaysian embassy to provide consular support for Nagaenthran's family, who arrived in Singapore with the help and funding of abolitionist advocate Kirsten Han and her activist group. Within a short span of two days, Han and her fellow activists managed to raise more than $14,000 for flights, quarantine hotel rooms and other arrangements, including a funeral, on behalf of Nagaenthran's family.^[55] This allowed Nagaenthran's mother to fly to Singapore to see her son for the first time in three years.^[56]

One of Nagaenthran's brothers Navinkumar Dharmalingam told activist Kokila Annamalai that when he visited his brother in prison, he observed that his brother seemed to be completely disoriented compared to the last time they visited him. He said his brother was incoherent, smiled irrelevantly at times and unable to make any eye contact, and he did not seem to clearly remember some of the people he knew except for his mother, whom Nagaenthran entrusted to his brother's care during their visit. An unnamed death row convict who lived in a neighbouring cell next to Nagaenthran reportedly told Navinkumar that Nagaenthran was introverted and often kept to himself at times, and in fact, he has not spoken to anyone in over a year. Nagaenthran's lawyer M Ravi, who observed his client acting like a "five-year-old child", feared that Nagaenthran may not be aware of his death and the 11-year period he spent on death row may have had a deteriorating effect on his mental health.^[57][58] Amnesty International's researcher of Singapore, Rachel Chhoa-Howard, commented on the court verdicts of Naganethran's case where they dismissed his reports of diminished responsibility, "Taking people's lives is a cruel act in itself but to hang a person convicted merely of carrying drugs, amid chilling testimony that he might not even fully understand what is happening to him, is despicable."^[59]

The fact that the execution was due to take place just six days after the annual Hindu festival Deepavali (which Nagaenthran and his family celebrated annually) made the protest and questioning of the execution more intense, since the family would not get to celebrate it while being plagued with the harrowing effects of the upcoming execution. The family confirmed that they were too heartbroken to celebrate, instead spending the final days counting down to Nagaenthran's execution.^[60][61][62] A man was arrested on 4 November 2021 for posting a poster advocating against Nagaenthran's death sentence at a train in Kuala Lumpur, which was classified as an illegal act of public provocation.^[63]

Government's response and further pleas for mercy[]

Changi Prison Complex, where Nagaenthran is being held on death row

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) later released a statement in view of the increasing pressure to spare Nagaenthran's life. They stated that he was accorded full due process under the law and was represented by legal counsel throughout. They also reiterated the main points of the final court verdict in relation to Nagaenthran's case, stating that Nagaenthran did not commit the act under duress, and was not substantially mentally impaired to the extent of being ineligible for execution, and he clearly understood the magnitude of his actions, hence there was no necessity to review his case since his avenues of appeal were all exhausted. The amount of heroin which Nagaenthran trafficked in Singapore is equivalent to about 3,560 straws of heroin and it would be sufficient to feed the addiction of about 510 abusers for a week. His execution date remained as scheduled on 10 November 2021, as confirmed by the MHA.^[64][65]

Singapore also emphasised that the death penalty is the reason why it has one of the lowest crime rates globally, and the practice is necessary to clamp down on drug crimes that can destroy thousands of lives potentially if not strictly regulated and deterred. MHA said the penalties, including the death penalty, for the illegal trafficking, importation or exportation of drugs are made clear at Singapore's borders, to warn traffickers and syndicates of the harsh penalties they potentially face.^[66][67][68] The Singapore authorities also revealed that they have also set execution dates ahead for some other death row inmates (who were all not named) who also exhausted all their avenues of appeal.^[69]

Malaysian lawyer N Surendran continued to ask for mercy on Nagaenthran's life, stating that there was no justification to execute Nagaenthran based on his mental disability in view of the government of Singapore's response to public pressure. Lawyers for Liberty from Malaysia condemned the Singapore government for their response to the pleas of mercy and ignorance of Nagaenthran's mental faculties.^[70][71] Prime Minister of Malaysia Ismail Sabri Yaakob appealed to Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong to review Nagaenthran's case and revoke his death sentence. Ismail stated he, as a lawyer, respects Singapore's law and do not want to interfere but he hoped that the authorities can give Nagaenthran a chance to review his case.^[72][73] Similarly, Saifuddin Abdullah, Malaysia's foreign minister, appealed to his Singaporean counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan to give their authorities a discretion in deciding clemency for Nagaenthran's case, but overall he maintained Malaysia's respect for Singapore's law.^[74] The European Union, which prohibits the death penalty among its member nations, also joined in to pressure Singapore to pardon Nagaenthran from the gallows.^[75]

Last-minute appeal and COVID-19 infection[]

A last-minute appeal was heard on 8 November, two days before Nagaenthran was due to hang, and M Ravi argued the appeal at the High Court.^[76] The whole appeal itself was dismissed by the High Court, as the judge See Kee Oon made it clear that the case has exhausted all its avenues of appeal since 2019 and hence there is no legal basis to not execute Nagaenthran based on allegations that his mental state has deteriorated during his time on death row and thus made him ineligible for execution, because there is no evidence present to the courts about these claims. There is also no medical basis to support the claim that Nagaenthran's mental age is below 18 years old since this was based on his lawyer's opinion. M Ravi has no medical expertise and met the Malaysian only once and interacted with him for just 26 minutes on 2 November. Justice See was also not convinced by Ravi's arguments regarding international law violations because of capital punishment, as he stated there is no legal basis for international law to take precedence over domestic law, concluding the appeal by stating that the law should take its course since Nagaenthran had already been accorded full due process and exhausted his appeals. An appeal to the Court of Appeal was also heard on 9 November 2021.^{[77][78][79][80]} The rushed schedule to close up on Nagaenthran's last-minute appeal process was criticised by lawyer N. Surendran as a denial of due legal process for Nagaenthran.^[81]

During the appeal hearing at the High Court, the testimonies of the prison officers who knew Nagaenthran were presented in court disputed the supposed mentally ill behaviour of Nagaenthran. A senior prison officer who had befriended Nagaenthran for the past three years had not seen any abnormal behaviour from Nagaenthran, who was able to request religious counselling after being told that he would be hanged in the near future. Another prison officer said Nagaenthran had no problem communicating with the prison officers in English, Malay and Tamil, making requests and responding to instructions. Not only did he ask for religious counselling and a DVD player to play religious songs, Nagaenthran was also able to request for phone calls to his family members and for them to visit him, as well as selecting whichever prison officers who could help fulfill his needs during the final days prior to his execution. The Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) earlier requested to Nagaenthran's lawyer to allow them to disclose the latest psychiatric records detailing Nagaenthran's mental state, but Ravi objected to the disclosure.^[82]

On 9 November, the day of the appeal at the Court of Appeal, Malaysia's Communications and Multimedia minister Annuar Musa expressed to Singapore his hope that they could reconsider Nagaenthran's case and spare his life. At the same time, the human rights experts of the United Nations also pushed for Singapore to spare Nagaenthran's life.^[83][84][85]

However, on 9 November 2021, it was reported that Nagaenthran was tested positive for COVID-19 just 12 minutes after he arrived at the Court of Appeal for his appeal hearing, and thus the execution on 10 November will not proceed as scheduled. Both Ravi and the prosecutor were informed of this by one of the judges in a courtroom packed with both local and international media and activists. His appeal was also delayed to allow Nagaenthran time to recover before proceeding with the appeal process. The appeal will be heard by three judges Andrew Phang, Judith Prakash and .^{[86][87][88][89]}

The next day on 10 November, the original date of Nagaenthran's execution, the Singapore Prison Service revealed that prior to his appearance in court, Nagaenthran did not report any symptoms and was initially tested negative by the ART test before the results of the PCR test confirmed Nagaenthran's COVID-19 infection. It was also revealed that Nagaenthran did not choose to vaccinate himself from COVID-19, even though more than 90% of the prison staff and 90% of the prisoners were fully vaccinated from the virus. Several prison officers and some of Nagaenthran's fellow prisoners at the death row cells of Changi Prison's Institution A1 were also subsequently tested positive, and the affected death row cells are undergoing lockdown to avoid the infection from spreading. Nagaenthran and the people he interacted with are currently isolated to avoid spreading infection to more people and be given medical treatment in the mean time. There will also be measures taken to ensure regular testing of both prison staff and inmates for COVID-19.^[90][91] In addition to 54 supervising prison officers, a total of 169 prisoners from the prison, including those on death row, were confirmed to be infected as of 12 November 2021.^[92]

Further death penalty debate and Singapore's response[]

The case has brought light to the issue of the death penalty in Malaysia. While many human rights groups pushed for abolition of the death penalty, most of the Malaysians believed that the death penalty should remain for serious crimes like murder and certain offences of corruption other than drug trafficking, and support for the death penalty remains high in Malaysia despite the decreasing numbers of new death sentences given by the courts. Legal professionals and enforcement, including some lawyers and police officers, commented that there should be some powers of discretion given to the judges to impose life imprisonment in some capital cases instead of death with respect to its mitigating circumstances, but they generally felt that the death penalty is overall still relevant to use against drug trafficking and murder and other offences, given the rampant rate of drug offences committed in Malaysia.^[93] Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz, who was debating the debating Budget 2022 in Dewan Rakyat, brought up the case of Nagaenthran and hopes that Malaysia can review its death penalty laws for drug traffickers in Malaysia, given that it also executed many drug offenders while appealing for mercy on its citizens in other countries, which was inconsistent with their stance towards drug convicts in and out of Malaysia.^[94]

In light of the growing pressure by the United Nations (UN) to pardon Nagaenthran, Singapore's representative to the UN and Ambassador responded and highlighted that the courts in Singapore has already made it clear in their verdicts that Nagaenthran may have borderline intellectual functioning but he did not suffer from mild intellectual disability, and they also gave their strictest due consideration to determine the eligibility of Nagaenthran's condition for execution, and even Nagaenthran's personal psychiatrist has also agreed that the Malaysian has no intellectual disability. With regards to the UN's accusations that Singapore has violated international law by imposing death sentences on drug offenders who committed "non-serious" crimes by international standards, Singapore stated there was no international consensus on the death penalty or what was the threshold of "serious crimes", and every country has the sovereign right to decide on its use of the death penalty and the types of capital offences they defined under the law.^[95]

When facing the UN's other allegations that the fate of a drug offender were decided by the prosecution of Singapore and the unfairness towards Nagaenthran's family with a long list of strict rules of COVID-19 travel regulations, Singapore rebutted it by stating that the prosecution's decisions are independent of the government and they are still liable for review of their decisions, which Nagaenthran has already appealed for before the courts found no error after reviewing the prosecution's decisions. The COVID-19 travel restrictions and rules were not discriminatory towards Nagaenthran's family, as they were all similar to the ones which apply to all travellers entering Singapore from Malaysia during this period, and were made to address the present pandemic situation in Singapore, and the authorities made efforts to contact the family to allow them to understand the travel regulations and facilitate their stay in Singapore.^[96]

On 12 November 2021, Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also revealed that the ministers in Singapore, including Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, has responded to their respective Malaysian counterparts that Nagaenthran was being accorded full due process under the law and was not intellectually disabled as confirmed by the courts and psychiatric assessments, hence there should be no intervention in his case.^[97] In response to the government's statements, Malaysia's human rights lawyer N. Surendran and Lawyers for Liberty claimed that the Singapore government was fabricating their stand that Nagaenthran was accorded full due process, stating that the courts had not given Nagaenthran a full due court process by not taking into consideration of his intellectual and mental impairment or making accommodation to address them during the court proceedings.^[98] Human Rights Watch's senior disability rights expert Emina Ćerimović commented on Nagaenthran's case, "The inhumanity shown by the Singaporean authorities in Nagaenthran’s case is truly shocking." Ćerimović also added, "The government’s determination to execute a man with an intellectual disability for importing a small amount of drugs is disproportionate and cruel, and deserves global condemnation."^[99]

Further appeals and adjournment of court hearing[]

The Malaysian Bar, together with the Advocates Association of Sarawak and the Sabah Law Society, also activated their efforts to appeal to the Singapore government for clemency to lower Nagaenthran's death sentence to life imprisonment, and they cited that they maintain their respect for Singapore's laws but implored the city-state to, on the basis of compassion and humanity, assess Nagaenthran's mental state to see if he is mentally competent to be hanged due to their concerns of the possible psychological impact that his 11-year death row period had on him.^[100] Both Nagaenthran's family and lawyer M Ravi expressed on 18 November that they will sue Singapore's attorney general Lucien Wong for negligence and willful disregard of human life by the judicial system. Not only that, Wong sent a letter to Ravi, stating that Ravi's other allegations against the legal system in Nagaenthran's case amounted to "contempt of court" and he should retract them and apologise by a deadline of 22 November. However, Ravi has stated that he will not retract his statements or apologise to the attorney general.^[101][102]

On 23 November 2021, Yang di-Pertuan Agong from Malaysia reportedly wrote to the President of Singapore, hoping that clemency could be given to Nagaenthran.^[103]

On 26 November 2021, the Court of Appeal of Singapore will give its verdict regarding Nagaenthran's final appeal four days later on 30 November.^[104][105] However, the court date was postponed to sometime in January 2022, according to activist Angelia Pranthaman, whose brother Pannir Selvam was on death row for drug offences. She appealed to Singapore to spare the lives of both Nagaenthran and her brother and commute their death sentences.^[106] However, Nagaenthran's lawyer M Ravi, who requested the adjournment, stated there was no definite date confirmed as the courts did not inform him of a new court hearing date. The adjournment was a result of Ravi's suspenion from his legal duties in view of his relapse from bipolar disorder.^[107]

On 3 December 2021, the President of Singapore Halimah Yacob replied to the Agong's clemency letter, firmly stating that Nagaenthran was being 'accorded full due process under the law' and thus refused to grant clemency to Nagaenthran.^[108][109]

The next court date for Nagaenthran's appeal was set for 24 January 2022. The case will be heard by a five-judge panel comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Judges of Appeal Andrew Phang, Judith Prakash and Belinda Ang, and Senior Judge Chao Hick Tin.^{[110][111][112]} Nagaenthran's lawyer M Ravi was also replaced by Violet Netto. As Nagaenthran's appeal hearing was drawing near, concerned members of the international community, including British actor Stephen Fry, continued to appeal to Singapore to spare the 34-year-old Malaysian from the gallows.^[113][114]

On 24 January 2022, Violet Netto sought an adjournment of the appeal, and it was granted by the courts, which have not set a new hearing date.^[115] However, in another news article that reported the unrelated scheduled executions of two drug traffickers, it was mentioned that Nagaenthran's appeal was likely slated to be heard in March 2022.^[116]

The appeal was heard on 1 March 2022, and the judgement is currently reserved till an unspecified date.^{[117][118][119]}

See also[]

• Capital punishment in Singapore
• Cheong Chun Yin
• Pannir Selvam Pranthaman
• Yong Vui Kong
• Van Tuong Nguyen
• List of major crimes in Singapore (before 2000)
• List of major crimes in Singapore (2000–present)
• Misuse of Drugs Act (Singapore)

Notes[]

References[]