MALAYSIA has again raised the planned execution of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam by Singapore for a drug offence, despite having exhausted his clemency process, the Foreign Ministry said.

Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said the ministry had appealed to the Singapore court until the last stage through the Presidential Clemency process but was rejected last year.

Nagaenthran, a Malaysian citizen with an intellectual disability, is to be hanged on November 10.

“Our appeal was rejected on June 1, 2020.

“I have received letters from organisations such as the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (Adpan) through Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah urging the Foreign Ministry to raise this issue with the Singapore government.

“As such, I have sent a letter to the Singapore foreign minister about this case. Wisma Putra through the Malaysian High Commission in Singapore will continue to monitor this case and extend consular help to Nagaenthran and his family,” Saifuddin said in a statement today.

Nagaenthran, whose intellectual disability has been certified by a psychiatrist and who has an IQ of 69, is to be hanged on November 10 for illegally importing 42.72g of diamorphine in 2009.

He was caught in April that year entering Singapore from Malaysia via the Woodlands Checkpoint with a bundle of heroin strapped to his thigh.

He was convicted in Singapore in 2011 under the republic’s Misuse of Drugs Act, and lost his appeal against the death penalty 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.

Adpan earlier today staged a protest outside the Parliament gates and handed a memorandum urging Putrajaya to intervene in Nagaenthran’s case.

Yesterday, the Malaysian Bar also sent a delegation of lawyers to the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur to submit an appeal to the republic’s President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for Nagaenthran’s clemency. – November 3, 2021.