On Tuesday, a candlelight vigil was held outside the Singaporean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in memory of Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, a Malaysian who was condemned to death in Singapore.
He was executed in Singapore on Wednesday, according to his family, despite his petitions for leniency on the basis that he had an intellectual handicap. The guy was convicted of narcotics trafficking and sentenced to death.
Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, 34, had been on death row for more than a decade after being convicted of smuggling 1.5 ounces of heroin into Singapore, which has some of the world’s strictest anti-narcotics legislation. Several appeals against his execution had been submitted by his attorneys, claiming that he was intellectually impaired.
His brother Navin Kumar, 22, confirmed by telephone that the execution had taken place and that the corpse will be sent to Malaysia, where a burial service would be performed in the town of Ipoh, where the brother was born.
A Singapore court on Tuesday dismissed a legal appeal brought forth by Nagaenthran’s mother, paving the door for the execution by hanging to go place as scheduled on Thursday.
With tears in their eyes, Dharmalingam and his family grabbed through a breach in the glass screen and fiercely grasped one other’s hands as they left the courtroom on Tuesday. He could be heard calling out to his mother throughout the courtroom.
On Monday, over 300 people gathered in a Singapore park to hold a candlelight vigil in opposition to the scheduled hanging.
It has drawn international attention to Nagaenthran’s case, with a panel of United Nations experts and British billionaire Richard Branson joining Malaysia’s prime minister and human rights advocates in calling for Singapore to commute his death sentence.
His attorneys and supporters claim that Nagaenthran’s IQ was tested and determined to be 69, which is considered to be a degree of intellectual incapacity. The courts, on the other hand, found that he was aware of what he was doing at the time of his crime and that there was no acceptable evidence demonstrating any deterioration in his mental state.
The government of Singapore claims that the death sentence is a deterrence against drug trafficking, and the majority of the country’s inhabitants favor the death penalty.
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Published By: Aman Gupta
Edited By: Vanshika Sahu
