Malaysia appeals to stop execution of Prabu, scheduled for this Friday?

The family of 31-year-old Malaysian Prabu N Pathmanathan were informed last week he would be executed on Friday..Prabu, 31, had been sentenced to death for committing several acts preparatory to and for the purposes of trafficking in 227.82g of diamorphine or heroin into the island state on Dec 31, 2014.

 

Law Minister to appeal to S’pore to commute Malaysian’s death sentence

PETALING JAYA: Datuk Liew Vui Keong will write a letter to the Singapore government to urge it to commute the death sentence of a Malaysian man who is scheduled to be executed on Friday (Oct 26).

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department said he hoped that Singapore would commute Prabu Pathmanathan’s sentence to life imprisonment.

Prabu, 31, had been sentenced to death for committing several acts preparatory to and for the purposes of trafficking in 227.82g of diamorphine or heroin into the island state on Dec 31, 2014.

“It will be a sad day. I hope they don’t do it,” he told reporters on Wednesday (Oct 24) when asked what would happen if Singapore went ahead with the execution.

Earlier on Wednesday, Lawyers for Liberty advisor N. Surendran urged Putrajaya to make “urgent and strenuous” efforts to save Prabu from the gallows.

  Surendran said Prabu’s family had been informed that the execution would be held at Changi Prison on Friday for alleged drug trafficking.

“The family was only informed of the Friday hanging on Oct 20 via a letter from the Singapore Prison Services, which is less than one week’s notice.

“In the same chilling letter, the family was asked to make the ‘necessary funeral arrangements’,” Surendran said.

According to Surendran, there were doubts surrounding Prabu’s conviction, adding that the drugs was found in a vehicle driven by another person, and not Prabu.

He also claimed that the confessions obtained from Prabu by the prosecution for the trial were made under duress.

The Singapore Anti Death Penalty Campaign also called for the Singapore government to halt the execution of Prabu.

“Not only is it irreversible once an execution takes place, it also creates another set of victims – the loved ones of the executed,” it said in a statement.

On Oct 15, Liew had announced that the Malaysian government would go ahead with plans to completely abolish the death penalty in this country. – Star, 24/10/2018

Human rights groups urge Singapore to halt imminent executions

City-state expected to execute two men, including a Malaysian, following convictions for drug offences.

View through a vehicle window shows cell blocks inside Singapore’s Changi Prison [Vivek Prakash/Reuters]

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Singapore is being urged to halt the planned execution on Friday of two men convicted of drug-related offences amid reports four people were hanged in the city-state in the past three weeks.

The family of 31-year-old Malaysian Prabu N Pathmanathan were informed last week he would be executed on Friday, human rights groups said. Another man is also scheduled to hang but has not been named.

“Singapore authorities must immediately halt plans to kill these men and put a stop to this recent wave of callous executions,” Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Amnesty International’s Singapore researcher, said in a statement.

Singapore reportedly hanged a man on Wednesday and three others on October 5 also for drug-related offences, the group said.

Lawyers for Liberty, a Kuala Lumpur-based legal firm that specialises in human rights cases, urged the Malaysian government to intervene to stop the hanging.

Executions are usually carried out at dawn at Changi Prison.

“The death penalty is cruel and inhuman and particularly so when used in drugs cases, which results in the execution of drug mules from poor socio-economic backgrounds,” the firm’s N Surendran said in a statement.

‘Barbarity’

Admitting time was “running out”, Surendran and Prabu’s mother and sister delivered an appeal for clemency to Singapore’s president, Halimah Yacob, on Thursday.

“Malaysia has recognised the barbarity of the death penalty and has recently announced its total abolition. Having taken that position, the Malaysian government must do everything possible to save citizens abroad who are facing execution,” it said.

Malaysia’s government that was elected in May has suspended executions and announced its intention to abolish the death penalty for all crimes.

De facto law minister Liew Vui Keong said he would write to the Singapore government to request Prabu’s death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment, local media reported on Thursday. Prabu was sentenced to death in relation to the trafficking of 228kg of heroin into the island state at the end of 2014.

“It is time for Singapore to re-establish its moratorium on the death penalty and follow the government of Malaysia’s example,” Amnesty’s Chhoa-Howard said.

Amnesty said it believes Singapore has carried out six executions this year, all in relation to drug-offences. It said there were eight executions last year. Singapore does not publicly disclose information about its use of the death penalty.

Capital punishment was imposed or implemented for drug-related offences in 15 countries last year, but executions for such crimes were recorded in only four – China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

One-hundred and six countries across the world have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. – Al Jazeera, 25/10/2018