CNN
—
A man with intellectual disabilities was executed in Singapore on Wednesday, his household’s lawyer mentioned, after an extended marketing campaign for clemency failed, placing the city-state’s zero-tolerance drug legal guidelines again beneath scrutiny.
Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a 34-year-old Malaysian citizen, was arrested in 2009 for bringing 42.7 grams (1.5 ounces) of heroin into Singapore. He was convicted and sentenced to loss of life in 2010.
Dharmalingam’s brother was advised by a jail official that the execution had been accomplished on Wednesday, his household’s lawyer, N. Surendran, advised CNN.
“His brother is waiting to collect his body and take it back to their hometown, Ipoh in Malaysia,” Surendran mentioned.
Dharmalingam’s case drew international attention – together with from the United Nations, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and British billionaire Richard Branson – who decried the courtroom’s continuing regardless of his mental incapacity. A psychologist assessed his IQ to be 69.
His lawyer filed a number of appeals to overturn the execution, arguing that Dharmalingam mustn’t have been sentenced to loss of life beneath Singaporean legislation as a result of he was incapable of understanding his actions.
But a Singapore courtroom rejected a last appeal from Dharmalingam’s lawyer final month, saying there was “no admissible evidence showing any decline in the appellant’s mental condition after the commission of the offense.”
On Tuesday, a Singapore courtroom turned down a authorized problem by Dharmalingam’s mom, clearing the best way for the execution, in keeping with Reuters. At the tip of the listening to, Dharmalingam and his household wept as they grasped every others’ fingers by means of a spot in a glass display, Reuters reported, including that Dharmalingam’s cries of “ma” – which implies “mother” – might be heard within the courtroom.
Anti-death penalty group Reprieve mentioned Dharmalingam’s “name will go down in history as the victim of a tragic miscarriage of justice.”
“Hanging an intellectually disabled, mentally unwell man because he was coerced into carrying less than three tablespoons of diamorphine is unjustifiable and a flagrant violation of international laws that Singapore has chosen to sign up to,” Reprieve director Maya Foa mentioned in a press release.
“Nagen’s last days were spent, like much of the last decade, in the torturous isolation of solitary confinement. He had to seek the court’s permission to hold his family’s hands one final time yesterday. Our thoughts are with Nagen’s family, who never stopped fighting for him; their pain is unimaginable.”
Singapore has a few of the strictest drug legal guidelines on this planet.
Trafficking a certain quantity of medication outcomes – for instance, 15 grams (0.5 ounces) of heroin – in a compulsory loss of life sentence beneath the Misuse of Drugs Act. It was solely just lately – and after Dharmalingam’s case started – that the legislation was amended to permit for a convicted individual to flee the loss of life penalty in sure circumstances.
Dharmalingam spent a decade on loss of life row and through that point his situation additional deteriorated, in keeping with his lawyer.
About 300 individuals held a candlelight vigil in a Singapore park on Monday to protest towards Dharmalingam’s impending execution, in keeping with Reuters.