In Singapore, Southeast Asia, a Malaysian was to be hanged on Wednesday November 10, eleven years after being arrested at the airport with three tablespoons of heroin hidden on him. But before the expected date of his last breath, a positive Covid-19 test suspended his execution until further notice. While the 2010 death sentence for the young man, who is now 33, is not surprising when one looks at Singapore’s extremely severe drug possession laws, this particular case has sparked a particular turmoil.
First because Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam is mentally handicapped with an IQ of only 69, proven by medical expertise at his trial. Then, the context of the pandemic and its deadly climate make the population more sensitive to the conditions in which these death sentences are proclaimed and carried out. Last year, for example, another case sparked a stir when another Malaysian was sentenced live on Zoom to be hanged for carrying him the equivalent of minus two tablespoons of heroin.
Finally, the sociological profile of these convicts, often precarious, and the severity of the sentences also move more and more people, such as Nathaniel Tan, a Malaysian activist who has published several editorials in the local press in recent weeks wondering about the purpose of these hangings. “In the case of Nagaenthran, it is only a question of 42 grams!, he exclaims. And he’s a mentally handicapped person! Yet we talk about him as if he were Pablo Escobar or a mastermind of crime! “
“Justice is supposed to be a deterrent, but we see that all recent convictions have never had a deterrent effect: we always see new cases.”
Nathaniel Tanto franceinfo
Nagaenthran’s defense developed only if he had found himself carrying drugs at age 21. It was in exchange for barely 105 euros, to help his father finance a heart operation.
If Singapore, and more generally South-East Asia, judge very severely the drug trafficking, the impact on the phenomenon is clearly not that hoped, according to the figures of the UNO. Thus, drug trafficking, especially methamphetamine, increased during the pandemic in this region of the world. For Gloria Lai, regional director of the International Drug Policy Consortium, the laws of countries are sometimes poorly written because they do not seem to target the heads of drug trafficking: “The convictions are focused on drug possession, then the amount and type of drug …, she explains. If you have drugs, it is concluded that you intend to use it yourself for trafficking. This is problematic, because the people who transport the drugs are really at the bottom of the network pyramid. “
As long as Nagaenthran is not negative for the Covid, he cannot be hanged. His defense and his family keep one last hope: to be able to prove by then that hanging a disabled person would be contrary to the Constitution of Singapore.