Nagaenthran’s death sentence was debatable, as there is strong likelihood his intellectual disability could have been exploited.

In 2010, 22-year-old Malaysian man Nagaenthran Dharmalingam smuggled 42.72 g of heroin into Singapore, and was sentenced to death by the city-state’s court the following year.

Up till this Tuesday, Nagaenthran had spent 12 years behind bars. Despite repeated appeals filed by his family and efforts by various parties trying to save his life, he was executed this (Wednesday) morning.

It is beyond question that Nagaenthran was a drug trafficker, but in a Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales test, Nagaenthran’s IQ was only 69, a level recognized as indicating an intellectual disability. An adult with this IQ level is said to have a mental age of between nine and twelve, and would need to be specially trained and educated in order to self manage their lives.

Based on this argument, the defendant’s lawyers believed Nagaenthran did not have the ability to judge the severity of punishment that would be handed down to him if he were arrested for drug trafficking, and he might not even be aware that he was carrying a prohibited drug. In other words, he could have been a “drug mule” exploited by drug dealers who managed to escape the gallows now awaiting Nagaenthran.

We believe the Singapore court has justly heard and trialed the case, but unfortunately Nagaenthran’s lawyer failed to provide strong evidence to prove his declining mental state during the act of drug smuggling, while his former counsel Ravi’s claim of Nagaenthran’s mental age in an affidavit lacked scientific evidence.

Both Singapore and Malaysia have very tough laws against drug trafficking. The only punishment for smuggling over 15 g of heroin, 30 g of cocaine or 500 g of marijuana, is death.

Once Nagaenthran was sentenced to death by the Singapore court, it would be very difficult to overturn that decision through normal proceedings. The only way to spare his life was to resort to alternative channels, such as citing his low IQ.

Wisma Putra, Singapore’s opposition parties, NGOs and members of the public on both sides of the Causeway had collected over 100,000 signatures to plead with the court to spare Nagaenthran from the gallows.

In 2015, Nagaenthran’s hope of having his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment was dashed. In 2020, he once again pleaded with president Halimah Jacob for clemency but was again disappointed.

His Majesty Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah also wrote to Singapore’s president appealing for leniency on Nagaenthran’s behalf, but Halimah replied that Nagaenthran had been accorded full due process under Singapore’s law.

Our foreign ministry also wrote to Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan, but again the reply was the same.

Nagaenthran’s sister Sarmila Dharmalingam was disappointed with the court’s verdict, asking to give her brother a chance because everyone would make mistakes and that we needed to let him know his mistake, having spent almost 13 years in jail.

Nagaenthran’s case has drawn widespread attention across the world.

British business magnate Richard Branson and actor Stephen Fry openly pleaded with the Singapore government to spare Nagaenthran’s life through a video lasting one minute and 20 seconds posted on Twitter.

They felt that Singapore had always been doing an excellent job in defending the rights of people with disabilities and championing their inclusion in society, and should therefore spare Nagaenthran who was suffering from intellectual disability, adding that sentencing him to death would be “a great risk to Singapore’s reputation in the world”.

Branson even made the last-ditch effort to save Nagaenthran on the eve of his execution, but, as expected, to no avail.

It is not easy to seek clemency from Singapore, known for its unbending insistence in adherence to principle.

The final legal challenge filed by Nagaenthran’s mother Panchalai Supermaniam was dismissed by Singapore’s Court of Appeal.

Among the condemned convicts awaiting execution in Malaysia’s prisons, drug traffickers make up the overwhelming majority. As of February 2019, of the 1,281 convicts on death row (yet to be executed), 73% were drug traffickers, and the percentage was even higher for condemned female convicts, at 95%!

Nagaenthran’s death sentence was debatable, as there is strong likelihood his intellectual disability could have been exploited.

If the judge had allowed him to undergo more discreet and professional assessment of his mental and intellectual state before arriving at the final verdict, his life could have been spared and his sentence commuted to life imprisonment instead, which was already the harshest punishment befitting him.

Moreover, a death sentence may not always serve the objectives of warning and education, or our prisons would not have been packed with convicted drug traffickers.

No one can tell for sure how many among them have been innocent drug mules exploited by illegal syndicates.