MALAYSIAN Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, who is in death row in Singapore, has been accorded full due process under the law.

This is the reply from Singapore President Halimah Yacob to Malaysia’s Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah, who had written to the president of Singapore appealing for clemency for Nagaenthran.

A statement issued by the republic’s Foreign Affairs Ministry yesterday said this in response to media queries on the appeal letters from Malaysian leaders and the fate of the 33-year-old Malaysian awaiting execution for a drug offence in Singapore.

On November 12, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan had also replied to their Malaysian counterparts.

Both Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah had written to their Singapore counterparts requesting for the discretion of the authorities in Singapore to grant a presidential clemency to Nagaenthran.

Hailing from Perak, Nagaenthran was arrested by Singaporean authorities on April 22, 2009, for smuggling 42.72g of diamorphine and was sentenced to death by the High Court of Singapore on November 22, 2010.

The appeal process through the court has already been made by Nagaenthran’s family lawyer up to the final stage, which is the presidential clemency that was rejected on June 1, 2020.

Nagaenthran, who has been on death row for 11 years and scheduled to be hanged on November 10, however, found temporary respite on November 9 after the court was told he had tested positive for Covid-19 when he appeared for a last-bid attempt against his sentence.

Following the dramatic turn of events, Nagaenthran was granted a further stay of execution by the Court of Appeal.

Nagaenthran’s lawyers said he is intellectually disabled. – Bernama, December 3, 2021.