TWO retired judges yesterday shared their experience witnessing a death sentence being carried out, and both believed that the execution of the innocent is the strongest argument against the death penalty.

“Nobody said a word. They measured his weight and height. There was a chart that showed a formula for how long the rope needed to be. If it was too short, he would strangle. If it’s too long, it may detach his head.

“Less than a minute after they placed the cloth around his head, they pulled the lever, and the trapdoor opened. That was the loudest bang I’ve heard in my life. And then there was silence,” said Mah Weng Kwai, recounting an execution in Pudu jail when he was a magistrate.

“They left the body for half an hour. The (prison) governor asked me to have coffee to pass the time,” said Mah, who retired as Court of Appeal judge, at a forum on “Death penalty – is it a deterrent” in Petaling Jaya last night.

While he did not elaborate on the man’s crime or whether he believed he was truly guilty, Mah and retired Sessions Court judge Jaglit Singh both argued that the judicial system was not above making mistakes that may have cost the lives of the wrongly accused.

The courts cannot guarantee zero risk of executing an innocent person due to human error and defective trials, they said.

“Mistakes can be made,” Mah said.

“And the death penalty has not reduced crime. There is no empirical proof or data that that irrefutably establish that the death penalty is an effective deterrent,” added the Judicial Appointments Commission member.

Present were Prematilaka Serisena, a speaker from the Buddhist Society, and Rev Fr Michael Chua, chancellor of the Catholic archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur.

Mah also questioned why the execution of the death penalty by hanging is not carried out in public and is shrouded in secrecy instead.

“To be an effective deterrent, shouldn’t the death penalty be carried out in public and publicised?”

Mah said the right to life is a constitutional and fundamental right and that the death penalty is a violation of an individual’s right to life and security.

“The death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading,” said the Suhakam commissioner. 

Jaglit also recounted his experience as a former deputy public prosecutor, where flawed testimonies of enforcement officers were used in drug-trafficking trials.

“Do we have honest, trustworthy, responsible and credible enforcement investigation and prosecution officers?”

He also said of overzealous prosecution officers who were pressured to achieve key performance indicators at all cost, including himself.

“The innocent may be condemned to death and it’s irreversible. The death penalty does not allow for repentance. It also does not allow for the rehabilitation of a criminal.

“All it serves is retribution, in emotion that can go out of control,” he said.

Jaglit added that due to the mandatory death sentence, judges may tend to acquit the accused when it comes to drug-trafficking offences rather than to send them to the gallows.

Chua said there was absolute injunction in the Catholic church against destroying the life of an innocent human being.

“No one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being,” he said.

There have been 702,329 people detained for trafficking and possessing drugs between January 2014 and October 2017.

From 2014 until present, no one on death row has been executed. The government announced a moratorium on the death penalty on October 10.

As of June 2018, there were 1,267 people on death row with about 900 for drug-related offences.

Besides drug trafficking, Malaysia also imposes the death penalty for 13 other crimes, including murder, treason and terrorism.

If the death penalty is repealed, Malaysia will join 106 countries which have abolished capital punishment. – October 30, 2018.