Mercy petition seeks support for Malaysian-Indian on death row

Singapore, November 5

An online petition has gathered 39,962 signatures as of Thursday to save an Indian-origin Malaysian on death row at Singapore’s Changi Prison, who was convicted in 2010 for drug trafficking here and had fabricated his defence that the offence was committed under duress.

Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on Wednesday that the High Court and the Court of Appeal held that Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam’s mental responsibility for his offence was not substantially impaired. He was found to have clearly understood that what he did was a crime and took the “calculated risk” to pay off his debt.

This was the finding by the High Court while sentencing the convict to death in 2010 for importing drugs into Singapore and it was upheld by the Court of Appeal, which “flatly rejected his account of being coerced under duress”, TODAY newspaper quoted the MHA as saying.

Nagaenthran was convicted and given the death penalty in November 2010 for importing 42.72 gm of heroin a year before.

An online report, cited by media outlets, said Nagaenthran would be hanged on November 10. —PTI