In Singapore sentenced positive to Covid, execution postponed

Execution postponed because the convict tested positive for coronavirus. It happens in Singapore, where the Court of Appeals has suspended the imminent execution of a mentally disabled man sentenced to death for drug trafficking and who has contracted Covid-19. The announcement was made by Judge Andrew Phang Boon Leong, of the Singapore Court of Appeals, on the eve of the date scheduled for the hanging of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, 33. The man, originally from Malaysia, was arrested in 2009 for drug trafficking, having introduced 43 grams of heroin into the country, and was sentenced to death the following year. His lawyers deem his death sentence unconstitutional and said they were ” happily surprised that this man, due to Covid, cannot be executed ”. In motivating his decision, the judge spoke of ” common sense and humanity ”. With an IQ of 69, which equates to a mental handicap, the offender was suffering from alcohol addiction when he committed the crime. UN human rights experts contested the decision to sentence a mentally disabled person to death, while the European Union asked Singapore to commute the sentence in prison. Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob also wrote to his Singapore counterpart asking him to postpone the execution “for humanitarian reasons”. Several NGOs, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have promoted an online petition against the man’s execution that has collected nearly 70,000 signatures.