The ruling ends all criminal avenues to forestall his execution and supporters say he might be hanged inside days.
The case has drawn world consideration — together with from the United Countries, Malaysia’s Top Minister and British billionaire Richard Branson — and put the city-state’s zero-tolerance drug regulations again below scrutiny.
Nagaenthran Okay Dharmalingam, a 34-year-old Malaysian citizen, was once arrested in 2009 for bringing 42.7 grams (1.5 oz) of heroin into Singapore. He was once convicted and sentenced to dying in 2010.
He appealed at the foundation of psychological incapacity and for his attorneys to start out judicial evaluation complaints to halt the dying sentence.
“The Courtroom of Attraction has simply disregarded the appliance and thought to be the attraction an abuse of procedure and that world legislation does now not follow. Nagaenthran who’s mentally disabled is because of be hanged perhaps in the following couple of days,” mentioned M. Ravi, who was once a part of Dharmalingam’s criminal workforce, in a Fb put up Tuesday.
In his ruling, Leader Justice Sundaresh Menon mentioned there was once “no admissible proof appearing any decline within the appellant’s psychological situation after the fee of the offense.”
“The case fixed via the appellant’s suggest was once baseless and with out benefit, each as an issue of reality and of legislation,” Menon mentioned, consistent with courtroom paperwork.
The courtroom additionally disregarded a request for Dharmalingam to be assessed via an unbiased panel of psychiatrists.
That attraction listening to was once then postponed as a result of Dharmalingam shrunk Covid-19. Tuesday’s verdict at the attraction exhausts Dharmalingam’s criminal choices.
Anti-death penalty crew Reprieve mentioned Dharmalingam is going through drawing close execution until he’s pardoned via Singapore’s President Halimah Yacob.
“We’re extraordinarily eager about rushed hearings and selections on this case, in violation of Nagaenthran’s truthful trial rights. Nagaenthran must be secure from the dying penalty on account of his highbrow incapacity,” Reprieve director Maya Foa mentioned in a observation.
“The center-wrenching indisputable fact that he believes he’s going domestic to his circle of relatives and talks about sharing home-cooked foods with them presentations that he does now not absolutely perceive he faces execution and lacks the psychological competency to be carried out.”
Dying sentence
Singapore has one of the crucial strictest drug regulations on this planet.
Trafficking a specific amount of substances — for instance, 15 grams (0.5 oz) of heroin — leads to a compulsory dying sentence below the Misuse of Medication Act. It was once handiest lately — and after Dharmalingam’s case started — that the legislation was once amended to permit for a convicted particular person to flee the dying penalty in positive cases.
Dharmalingam’s attorneys argued he must now not had been sentenced to dying below Singaporean legislation as a result of he was once incapable of working out his movements.
They mentioned a psychologist assessed his IQ to be 69, which is the world over identified as an highbrow incapacity. At his trial, the protection additionally argued he had critical consideration deficit hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD), borderline highbrow functioning, and critical alcohol use dysfunction.
Dharmalingam has spent a decade on dying row and all the way through that point his situation additional deteriorated, his attorneys mentioned.
“He has now not an excellent sense of what’s going down round him,” N. Surendran, a Malaysian legal professional who’s representing Dharmalingam’s circle of relatives, and adviser to Malaysian NGO Legal professionals for Liberty, mentioned in November. “He’s disoriented. He is were given no actual clue of what’s going to occur to him.”
Surendran mentioned executing Dharmalingam “could be tantamount to executing a kid.”
The courtroom on Tuesday, then again, mentioned there was once no admissible proof appearing any decline in Dharmalingam’s psychological situation.
The pass judgement on dominated the attorneys’ assertions of Dharmalingam’s psychological decline have been “self-serving” and “now not supported via anything else in any respect.” Menon, the manager justice, mentioned the protection complaints have been carried in some way supposed to extend the execution, consistent with courtroom paperwork.
“This comprises the truth his sentence was once imposed as a compulsory punishment and for an offense that doesn’t meet the brink of the ‘maximum severe crimes’ to which using the dying penalty will have to be limited below world legislation,” Amnesty mentioned.
CNN’s Caitlin McGee contributed reporting.
