Singapore executes Malaysian man with low IQ for drugs offences
Nagaenthran Dharmalingam had been on death row for more than a decade for attempting to bring around three tablespoons of heroin into Singapore.
A Malaysian man with learning disabilities has been executed in Singapore despite a huge international campaign to prevent it. Nagaenthran Dharmalingam had been found guilty of bringing a small amount of heroin into the city state. He has been described as having an IQ of below 70, which may indicate the presence of some type of intellectual disability. His mother had been unable to find a lawyer in Singapore to defend her son.
Katrina Jorene Ma-Lee-a-Mau is the Executive Director of Amnesty International in Malaysia. She says that hundreds of people had gathered in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and there had been "consistent opposition" to the death sentence. She believes that the use of the death penalty for drug offences is against international law.
"You are prohibited from imposing the death penalty on anyone with a mental or intellectual disability and it flies in the face of basic human values."
Photo: Vigil ahead of the planned execution of Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran Dharmalingam in Kuala Lumpur. Credit: Reuters
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