SINGAPORE
\nThe Court of Appeal on Tuesday rejected a bid by Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam to start judicial review proceedings to challenge his death sentence.
\nThe Straits Times reported that the five-judge court also dismissed Nagaenthran\u2019s request for him to be given time to locate psychiatrists to assess him. Delivering the court\u2019s decision, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said the case Nagaenthran mounted was \u201cbaseless and without merit both as a matter of fact and of law\u201d.
\nNagaenthran\u2019s lawyer, Violet Netto, had argued on March 1 that the 33-year-old was \u201cnot competent\u201d to be executed, claiming he was mentally disabled. Chief Justice Menon said there was no admissible evidence showing any decline in Nagaenthran\u2019s mental condition.
\nThe only evidence was a \u201cself-serving\u201d affidavit by Nagaenthran\u2019s former lawyer M. Ravi, in which he speculated that the inmate had the mental age of a person under the age of 18.
\nThe Chief Justice added that the way the case has been conducted showed that it was a \u201cstopgap measure\u201d devised by Nagaenthran and his lawyers to try to delay the execution.The Malaysian was arrested in 2009 at the age of 21 with heroin strapped to his thigh. He was convicted of trafficking 42.72g of heroin in 2010 and given the mandatory death penalty. His appeal against conviction and sentence were dismissed in 2011.
\nIn 2017, the High Court found that he did not qualify to be given life imprisonment, after considering the evidence from four psychological and psychiatric experts. Nagaenthran\u2019s case came under the spotlight in October last year after a letter from the Singapore Prison Service to his mother in Ipoh, informing her that the death sentence would be carried out on Nov 10, was circulated on social media. In an eleventh-hour bid to halt the execution, his former lawyer Ravi contended that, based on his opinion, Nagaenthran had the \u201cmental age\u201d of a person below 18 years old. The bid for permission to start judicial review proceedings to challenge his death sentence was dismissed by the High Court. He then appealed to the Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SINGAPORE The Court of Appeal on Tuesday rejected a bid by Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam to start judicial review proceedings to challenge his death sentence. The Straits Times reported that the five-judge court also dismissed Nagaenthran\u2019s request for him to be given time to locate psychiatrists to assess him. Delivering the court\u2019s decision, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-252083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n