Sarmila Dharmalingam is praying for a miracle. Her brother, Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, is set to be hanged in Singapore’s Changi Prison.
“When I’m alone and I think of my brother, there is pain. But [we need to] be brave and keep on praying – anything can happen,” she told the BBC.
In 2009, then 21-year-old Nagaenthran was caught trying to smuggle heroin into Singapore from Malaysia.
Nagaenthran was initially due to be hanged on Wednesday morning, but was granted a last-minute stay of execution. On Tuesday he was found to have Covid-19 and the execution was further delayed.
The Malaysian citizen was sentenced to death despite an assessment by a medical expert that he has an IQ of 69 – a level recognised as indicating an intellectual disability.
But the Singapore government said he “clearly understood the nature of his acts and did not lose his sense of judgment of the rightness or wrongness of what he was doing”.
Singapore has one of the world’s toughest drug laws and locally, the use of the death penalty is largely uncontroversial. But this case appears to have sparked a rare disquiet in the island nation.
Outpouring of anger
More than 60,000 people have now signed a petition calling for Singapore’s president to pardon Nagaenthran, citing the fact that the execution of a mentally ill person is prohibited under international human rights law.
“It is completely disheartening that an intellectually disabled man is being punished for a non-violent crime,” said one person who signed the petition. “Neither he nor his family deserve this pain. Please save him.”
The movement has also gained traction on social media, where there is an unusual outpouring of anger and sympathy.
Sarmila says she’s not clear if the 33-year-old himself understands how dire his situation is.
“Sometimes he calls me and tells me he is going to be hanged and that he needs to get ready,” she told the BBC.
“[Other times] he says he wants to come back home to eat home-cooked food. I don’t know whether or not he knows [what’s about to happen].”
If he is hanged it will be the first execution Singapore has carried out since 2019.
The intellectual disability debate
In 2009, Nagaenthran was caught crossing into Singapore from Malaysia with 43g (1.5oz) heroin strapped on to his left thigh.
Under Singapore’s laws, those caught carrying more than 15g of heroin will be subject to the death penalty.
During his trial, he initially said he was coerced into carrying the drugs, but later said he had committed the offence because he needed money. The court said his initial defence was “fabricated”. He was eventually sentenced to death by hanging.
In 2015, he appealed to have his sentence commuted to life in prison on the basis that he suffered from an intellectual disability.
In 2017 one psychiatrist, Dr Ken Ung, said that Nagaenthran suffered from a mild intellectual disability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and a drinking disorder – all of which would have “significantly affected his judgement [and] decision making”. In cross examination, Dr Ung appeared to contradict himself and said Nagaenthran could instead be suffering from borderline intellectual functioning.
While three other psychiatrists told the court that Nagaenthran was not intellectually disabled, one found that his “borderline intelligence may have contributed towards his… agreeing to carry out the offence”.
In the end, the court found that he was not intellectually disabled. A final push for presidential clemency was also rejected last year.
“The Court of Appeal found that this was the working of a criminal mind, weighing the risks and countervailing benefits associated with the criminal conduct in question,” said Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs in a statement.
– BBC
