THE Singapore High Court has granted an 11th-hour stay of execution to Datchinamurthy Kataiah, a Malaysian who was set to be executed tomorrow over drug offences, Lawyers for Liberty adviser N. Surendran said.

“There will be no execution for Datchinamurthy tomorrow,” Surendran told The Malaysian Insight.

He added that Datchinamurthy, 36, appealed and argued his case on his own before the court this morning as no Singapore lawyer dared to represent him for fear of reprisal from the state.

Datchinamurthy was charged with smuggling 44.96gm of diamorphine into Singapore in 2011 and sentenced to death in 2015. 

Previously Singapore human rights lawyer M. Ravi claimed the upcoming execution was a contempt of court, as there was a suit pending against the Singapore attorney-general.

Datchinamurthy’s legal challenge against his death sentence is set to be heard on May 20.

He would have been the second Malaysian to be executed in Singapore within two days if it had taken place tomorrow. 

Yesterday, Singapore executed Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, who had been on death row for more than a decade.

His appeal for the execution to be stopped based on his low IQ of 69, a lower-than-average score that qualifies for intellectual disability, had been unsuccessful.

He was arrested in 2009 and sentenced to death in 2011 under the Misuse of Drugs Act for illegally importing 42.7g of diamorphine. 

Nagaenthran was caught with a bundle of heroin strapped to his thigh when entering the city-state from Malaysia via the Woodlands checkpoint in April 2009. 

He was originally scheduled to be hanged in November last year but the decision sparked criticism due to his IQ level and his lawyer mounted an 11th-hour challenge at the Court of Appeal. 

On Tuesday Singapore’s Court of Appeal dismissed a legal challenge filed by Nagaenthran’s mother in a last-ditch attempt to set aside her son’s conviction and death sentence. 

Panchalai Supermaniam filed the legal challenge for her son with the help of friends and activists and was not represented by any lawyer. – April 28, 2022.