Singapore executes mentally disabled man
This photo taken on April 23, 2022, shows activists protesting against the execution of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam outside the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.
A mentally disabled Malaysian man was executed in Singapore on Wednesday, his family said, after losing a long legal battle.
Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam was arrested in 2009 for trafficking a small amount of heroin into the city-state, which has some of the world's toughest drugs laws, and handed a death sentence the following year.
Nagaenthran spent more than a decade mounting legal challenges but they were dismissed by Singapore's courts, and the city-state's president rejected appeals for clemency.
The 34-year-old was executed in the early hours, his sister Sarmila Dharmalingam told AFP.
"It is unbelievable that Singapore proceeded with the execution despite international appeals to spare his life," she said, speaking from Malaysia.
She added the family was "extremely saddened" and "in a state of shock."
Nagaenthran was originally scheduled to be hanged in November but that was delayed as he sought to appeal on the grounds that executing someone with mental disabilities contravenes international law.
He was arrested aged 21 as he tried to enter Singapore with a bundle of heroin weighing about 43 grams.
Supporters say he has an IQ of 69, a level recognized as a disability, and was coerced into committing the crime.
But authorities have defended his conviction, saying legal rulings found he knew what he was doing at the time of the offense.
His mother mounted a desperate 11th-hour legal challenge on Tuesday but it was swiftly rejected by a judge, prompting his relatives to break down in tears in court.
