Singapore has executed the Indian-Malaysian man who had been found guilty of trafficking 44 gram of heroin into the country.
34-year-old Nagaenthran Dharmalingam was executed in Singapore on Wednesday, his family said.
Nagaenthran had been on death row for over a decade. He was convicted for trafficking 44 grams (1.5 oz) of heroin into Singapore. The country has some of the world’s strictest narcotics laws.
His mother’s legal challenge was the last in the efforts made by family and human rights activists worldwide. The city-state’s highest court dismissed his mother’s emotional appeal to spare his life.
Justices Andrew Phang, Judith Prakash and Belinda Ang dismissed the last-minute application, saying: “There must come a time when the last word of the court is the last word”.
Nagaenthran, who spent 13 years behind bars, did not argue with the decision but asked one last question of the court.
“I’d like to make a last-minute request to spend some time with my family members,” he said via a translator. “I’m placing this request so I can hold my family members’ hands. Here in court, Your Honour, I would like to hold my family members’ hands, not in prison. May I please have permission to hold their hands here?”
The request was approved, and Nagaenthran was also allowed to spend two hours with his family members in the basement of the court complex without physical contact.
Later, his brother Navin Kumar told the media that the execution had been carried out and said the funeral would be held in the town of Ipoh in Malaysia.
The human rights organisations had appealed that Nagaenthran was an intellectually impaired man. Many celebrities, including Richard Branson and Stephen Fry, had appealed to commute his mandatory death sentence because he was mentally disabled with an IQ of 69.
