KUALA LUMPUR: A Singapore court has set April 27 as the execution date for disabled Malaysian Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, who was arrested in 2009 for bringing 42.7 grams of heroin into the city-state.
Singaporean human rights lawyer M. Ravi described the ruling as "heartbreaking" on his LinkedIn page, a professional networking site.
"Just received the heartbreaking news that Nagenthran will be hanged next Wednesday.
"The Singapore state will never be able to recover from the disgrace it's going to face internationally in hanging an intellectually disabled person.
"Everything from the beginning is wrong about this case. Even the government psychiatrist at the trial admitted that Nagenthran suffered from an abnormality of mind.
"I will say that all Singaporeans will have blood in their hands next Wednesday as the execution is done in their name. You have a duty to stop this!!!," Ravi wrote.
This ruling came a month after Singapore's top court rejected a last-ditch appeal against a death sentence.
A news portal, MalaysiaNow today reported Ravi as saying that the only way to save Nagaenthran now was for Putrajaya to take the case to the International Court of Justice.
Ravi had urged the Malaysian government to file an action in the International Court of Justice and obtain an interim stay.
Nagaenthran was arrested in 2009 at the age of 21 for trafficking heroin into Singapore, which has some of the world's toughest drugs laws, and handed a then mandatory death sentence the following year.
He was originally scheduled to be hanged in November, but the plan sparked criticism due to concerns about his intellectual disabilities, with the European Union and British billionaire Richard Branson among those condemning it.
The 34-year-old lodged a final appeal, with his lawyers arguing that executing someone with mental disabilities violated international law.
AFP had on March 29 reported that Nagaenthran supporters had said he has an IQ of 69 – a level recognised as a disability – and was coerced into committing the crime.
It said authorities, however, have defended his conviction, saying that legal rulings found he "knew what he was doing" at the time of the offence.
Singapore maintained the death penalty for several offences, including drug trafficking and murder, and insists it has helped to keep the state one of Asia's safest places.
