Singapore: For Richard Branson, the notion of an advanced country like Singapore still hanging prisoners is an outrageous proposition that may not escape investors.
But the high-profile case of Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, a mentally impaired death-row inmate with an IQ of 69 in the country’s Changi Prison, really struck a chord with the British billionaire entrepreneur and long-time anti-death-penalty advocate.
Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, 34, was arrested 13 years ago for smuggling 42.72 grams of heroin into Singapore from Malaysia. He was later handed a mandatory death sentence and has been on death row for more than a decade.
Now, after an unsuccessful, last-ditch appeal in Singapore’s highest court, Nagaenthran is scheduled to face the gallows at dawn next Wednesday.
“It’s devastating news,” the Virgin Group founder in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“What Singapore is planning to do is a violation of the country’s international commitments to protect the rights of people with disabilities.
“Executing Nagen would be a tragic injustice and a dark stain on Singapore’s international reputation,” Branson said.
The campaign to spare Nagaenthran’s life has cast the spotlight on the Southeast Asian nation’s use of capital punishment, which it has resumed carrying out after a two-year hiatus.
His legal team had tried to have his sentence commuted on the basis of an intellectual disability and last month submitted a new medical report by Australian consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Danny Sullivan that concluded he had “borderline intellectual functioning which was likely to have been causally associated with his offending”. Sullivan is the executive director of clinical services at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health.
The appeal was dismissed, however, by a five-judge panel in the Court of Appeal and this week his family in Malaysia was informed he is to be executed next week.
More at https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/d...ve-low-iq-man-from-death-20220422-p5afau.html
But the high-profile case of Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, a mentally impaired death-row inmate with an IQ of 69 in the country’s Changi Prison, really struck a chord with the British billionaire entrepreneur and long-time anti-death-penalty advocate.
Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, 34, was arrested 13 years ago for smuggling 42.72 grams of heroin into Singapore from Malaysia. He was later handed a mandatory death sentence and has been on death row for more than a decade.
Now, after an unsuccessful, last-ditch appeal in Singapore’s highest court, Nagaenthran is scheduled to face the gallows at dawn next Wednesday.
“It’s devastating news,” the Virgin Group founder in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“What Singapore is planning to do is a violation of the country’s international commitments to protect the rights of people with disabilities.
“Executing Nagen would be a tragic injustice and a dark stain on Singapore’s international reputation,” Branson said.
The campaign to spare Nagaenthran’s life has cast the spotlight on the Southeast Asian nation’s use of capital punishment, which it has resumed carrying out after a two-year hiatus.
His legal team had tried to have his sentence commuted on the basis of an intellectual disability and last month submitted a new medical report by Australian consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Danny Sullivan that concluded he had “borderline intellectual functioning which was likely to have been causally associated with his offending”. Sullivan is the executive director of clinical services at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health.
The appeal was dismissed, however, by a five-judge panel in the Court of Appeal and this week his family in Malaysia was informed he is to be executed next week.
More at https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/d...ve-low-iq-man-from-death-20220422-p5afau.html
