Singapore: a mentally handicapped Malaysian executed after thirteen years of detention
Activists hold signs and a photo of Nagaenthran Dharmalingam outside the Singapore Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 23, 2021. AP - Vincent Thian
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
This Malaysian was arrested at the border of the two countries in 2008, then aged twenty, he had on him 43 grams of drugs.
If this death sentence is not unusual in Singapore, it is nevertheless moving, especially given the health of this man who was mentally handicapped.
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With our correspondent in Kuala Lumpur
,
Gabrielle Maréchaux
It was not yet dawn on Wednesday 27 April when Nagenthram Dharmalingam left the single cell, where he had been 23 hours a day for more than ten years, to be hanged.
An execution which had, a few months ago, been rescheduled after a positive test for Covid-19 by the condemned man.
“
That was one of the things that shocked a lot of people then: the idea that he had to be healthy for the government to execute him.
It was a bit like saying: “you cannot be sick or even die from Covid-19, we are the ones who must kill you
”, estimates Kirsten Han, of the organization of the rallies in support of Nagaenthran in Singapore.
But if the Covid-19 may have worried the Singapore authorities, Nagaenthran's mental health remained a neglected subject, notes Kirsten Han.
“
An expert judged the man to be mentally deficient, but the Singaporean justice system still considers him responsible for his actions.
There was a request made by his defense for an independent and detailed psychiatric expertise to take place;
it was refused
, ”recalls the activist.
Penalties that do not solve the underlying problem
In Malaysia, Nagaenthran's lawyers and anti-death penalty activists denounced the execution in front of the Singapore Embassy, with bitter airs of deja vu.
Attorney Zaid Malek, from the Lawyers for Liberty group, has worked on numerous cases of Malaysian death row inmates for drug trafficking in Singapore.
They all have one thing in common: “
They are always mules, never drug lords.
So, in addition to being cruel, these condemnations do not even solve the basic problem, they ignore any socio-economic context and even, in the case of Nagaenthran, his handicap.
»
This Friday, Datchinamurthy Kataiah, another Malaysian will also be hanged for carrying three tablespoons of drugs.
After two years of pandemic and reprieve for death row inmates, the “
return to normal
” thus rhymes with capital punishment in Singapore.
But also with a surge in public opinion, like the gatherings of several hundred people, very unusual in this small state in South East Asia.
►
To read: In Singapore, the "return to the world before" also applies to the death penalty
Less support for the death penalty
“
It gave me a lot of hope,
” explains Kirsten Han
.
It's very hard to get a sense of public opinion on the death penalty in Singapore, it's not a matter of public debate here, if you only read the headlines in the Singaporean press you can clearly ignore that there are two hangings this week.
So the people who have come together in support of Nagaenthran have mostly been told by word of mouth.
It is often said that a majority of Singaporeans support the death penalty, but it is very difficult to know what exactly this majority supports, what they know about the death penalty.
»
According to the activist, a rather ambitious opinion poll was carried out a few years ago by academics on this issue and their work shows that yes, a majority of Singaporeans support the death penalty overall, but when they are gives more details, this support is no longer as strong, and a majority of respondents are for example no longer in favor of the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences.
"
It's quite interesting, because it is precisely for this offense that most people sentenced to death are executed in Singapore
," says Kirsten Han.
►
To read also: The death penalty in the world, 40 years after its abolition in France
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