HUMAN rights groups are calling for the government to intervene in Singapore’s scheduled execution of Malaysian citizen Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam drug trafficking, highlighting his mental disability as a mitigating factor.

The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (Adpan) submitted a memorandum addressed to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Laws) Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar outside the gates of Parliament today, asking for a more lenient punishment.

“We are not asking for him to be forgiven of everything but we are only asking for him to not to be put to death,” Adpan activist Dobby Chew said.

“The Malaysian government should step in and help a fellow citizen instead of watching him get executed.”

Chew said it was known that Nagaenthran has an IQ of 69, as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

“There is no room in international law for him to be sentenced to death,” Chew said.

Adpan, which comprises several civil society groups opposed to the death penalty, sent more than 20 people to the gathering outside Parliament today.

Amnesty International Malaysia’s Brian Yap said Singapore is committing a crime against humanity.

“We are against all forms of death penalty but here we are looking at man who is not fit for execution,” he said.

The government needs to step in and use what is within its powers to pressure Singapore to call off the execution, Yap added.

Batu Kawan MP Kasthuri Patto, who received the memorandum, said the prime minister should be aware that Nagaenthran is a part of the Keluarga Malaysia concept.

“I am not saying that someone who committed a crime should not be punished, but this man has a mental disability

“The average IQ of a Singaporean is 106, whereas Nagaenthran’s is only at 69,” she said.

Yesterday, the Malaysian Bar sent a delegation of lawyers to the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur to submit an appeal to the republic’s president Halimah Yackob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for clemency.

Nagaenthran was convicted in Singapore in 2011 of illegally importing 42.7g of diamorphine, and sentenced to death under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

He was apprehended in April 2009, while entering Singapore from Malaysia via the Woodlands Checkpoint with a bundle of heroin strapped to his thigh.

The Court of Appeal in Singapore dismissed his appeal against the death sentence in 2019.

Nagaenthran’s mother, who is from Ipoh, received a letter on October 26 from the Singapore Prison Service informing her of her son’s imminent execution on November 10, 2021. – November 3, 2021.