The lawyer of Malaysian Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, who is set to be executed in Singapore next Wednesday for drug trafficking, has urged Putrajaya to bring the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

M Ravi, who is also a human rights activist, said that under international human rights law and customary law, Malaysia has the power to appeal to the ICJ to halt Nagaenthran's execution scheduled for April 27. Under international laws, executing a person with a mental disorder is prohibited, and the ICJ has the power to grant a stay, he pointed out.

While Singapore is not obliged to follow any ruling by the ICJ, Ravi said that he would expect the country to follow the ruling.

"The Singapore state will never be able to recover from the disgrace it's going to face internationally in hanging an intellectually disabled person.

"I will say that all Singaporeans have blood in their hands next Wednesday as the execution is done in their name," Ravi told news portal Free Malaysia Today (FMT).

Nagaenthran, 34, has been on death row since 2010 for smuggling 42.7gm of heroin into Singapore, which has zero tolerance against drugs smuggled into the country. His appeal against his conviction and sentence was dismissed in 2011.

During the trial, a Singapore government psychiatrist had declared that Nagaenthran was intellectually challenged with an IQ of 69, but the court has pressed on with the execution, saying that it has not found him to be "substantially impaired", and that he knew fully well he was carrying out an illegal act.


Source: FMT
Photo source: FMT, Al Jazeera