LAWYERS for Liberty adviser N. Surendran today challenged the Singaporean government’s statement that “due process” was applied in the trial and investigation of Malaysian death row inmate Nagaenthran Dharmalingam.

Surendran was commenting on news reports of the city-state’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan written replies to their Malaysian counterparts that the case of the 33-year-old convicted drug mule was accorded “full due process under the law.”

“Singapore PM’s claim that Nagaenthran got ‘due process’ is false; (the) arrest, investigation (and) trial processes did not make accommodations for his mental disability,” Surendran said in a statement today.

“This response is false, callous and untenable as it totally ignores Nagaenthran‘s mental disabilities. It was this fact that a person with such mental disabilities was to be hanged that triggered the worldwide condemnation we have seen in recent weeks.

“To say that ‘due process’ has been granted to a person with Nagaenthran’s mental disabilities means nothing at all.”

Surendran, who is also the Nagaenthran family lawyer, said  “due process” in the case of a person with disabilities must include specific procedures and accommodation in the criminal justice system which take into account his mental condition for crucial adjustments to be made accordingly. 

“From the moment of arrest and investigation to conclusion of trial, these ‘procedural accommodations’ should have been made in Nagaenthran’s favour. If (he has been) treated like any other defendant with normal mental abilities, Nagaenthran will not have been accorded a fair process or fair trial.

“But this is precisely what transpired; Nagaenthran was dealt with like any normal suspect or accused person. All sorts of police interrogations and statements were recorded from this uncomprehending person. Later, these statements would be used against him in court,” he said.

In reality, Surendran said the Malaysian sentenced to death for drug trafficking was denied due process from day one. 

“The fact is, at the time of Nagaenthran’s arrest and the subsequent stages of his case, no such procedural accommodations for disability were made for him because at that time Singapore did not have any such procedures.

“This they cannot factually deny. Hence, how can they realistically claim that they had accorded him due process?”

He said the city-state must adhere to the obligations under the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD), which it has been a state party to since 2013.

Further, he said the execution of a person with any form of mental disability runs contrary to those treaty obligations, and consequently to the right to life contained in Article 9 of the Singapore Constitution. 

“In view of all this, it is baffling and incomprehensible that the prime minister of Singapore says in his official response to the prime minister of Malaysia that due process has been done,” he said.

On the contrary, there has been manifest non-compliance with the basic due process that must be afforded to a person with mental disabilities.”

There is only one response that Singapore can make to Malaysia that would be consistent with its obligations under the CPRD and its own constitution, said Surendran.

That response is to exercise clemency in favour of Nagaenthran and to prioritise bringing Singapore’s criminal laws and procedures in accord with the rights of persons with disabilities, he added.

Nagaenthran was to have been executed by hanging in Changi Prison on November 10.

However, he was spared the gallows at the eleventh hour after the Court of Appeal in Singapore extended a stay on execution granted by the High Court on November 9, after Nagaenthran tested positive for Covid-19.

In 2019, Singapore’s Court of Appeal dismissed Nagaenthran’s appeal against his death sentence for carrying 42.72g of heroin into the republic.

He was caught with a bundle of heroin strapped to his thigh when entering the republic from Malaysia via the Woodlands checkpoint in April 2009.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said the federal government had exhausted the clemency process for Nagaenthran last year.

However, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob this wee wrote to Lee seeking leniency for the convict.

Anti-death penalty campaigners and rights groups in both countries have urged for the execution to be stopped on the grounds it was a violation of international law to execute a person with mental disabilities.

Nagaenthran has been diagnosed with intellectual disability and has an IQ of 69.  – November 13, 2021.