KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 25: International human rights lawyer M. Ravi expressed his bitterness over the execution of K.Datchinamuthy in Singapore today for drug trafficking, despite strong activist support for the latter’s release from the death sentence.
In an earlier facebook posting only several hours away from the execution time today, the former lawyer of Datchinamurthy had said the family had been informed that the latter’s execution had been halted and that they were praying for him.
Four hours later, Ravi posted again, saying that Datchinamurthy had been executed and his family have been asked to collect the body at 3pm.
“This is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and treatment,” he said.
Datchinamurthy was arrested for trafficking 44.96 grams of diamorphine from Malaysia to Singapore, and sentenced to death in May 2015.
UN EXPERTS CONDEMNS SINGAPORE’S DEATH PENALTY
In May 2022, Manik Mehta reported from New York on the views of a UN special committee on Singapore’s death punishment following the execution of another Malaysian national.
After having unsuccessfully appealed to Singapore not to carry out the execution of a Malaysian national suffering from a mental condition, United Nations experts issued a strong condemnation of Singapore for ignoring their plea and carrying out the execution of the Malaysian national on a drug-related offense.
The UN experts have called for an immediate end to the death penalty.
Reacting to the Malaysian national’s execution by Singapore, the UN appointed independent human rights experts urged Singapore to immediately impose a moratorium on the death penalty. They maintained that the continued application of the death penalty for drug-related offenses ran counter to international law.
The UN experts reminded that countries that still carried out the death penalty may impose it only for “the most serious crimes”. The eleven experts, constituting the human rights group, issued a statement saying that under international law “only crimes of extreme gravity involving killing” should be considered “most serious”. They said that “drug offenses clearly do not meet this threshold”.
The Malaysian national already executed by Singapore was Nagaenthran Dharmalingam in April ( 2022) while a Singaporean Abdul Kahar bin Othman was executed in March also for drug-related offences.
The execution of Dharmalingam, despite reports about his intellectual disability – according to New York based sources, he suffered from a deteriorating mental health condition and was himself a victim of human trafficking – was strongly criticized, with some human rights advocates calling it “inhuman”.
“Executions of persons with intellectual disabilities and for drug-related offences are a violation of the right to life and the right to be free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and amount to unlawful killings,” the experts remarked in their statement.
The experts urged the Singaporean authorities to halt any plan to execute another man – also a Malaysian national who has been convicted for a similar offense – and to immediately impose “an official moratorium on all executions with a view to fully abolishing the death penalty”.
The full report can be read here:https://www.weekly-echo.com/un-experts-condemn-singapores-execution-of-malaysian-on-drug-related-charges/
–WE