Activists urge Singapore to stop the execution of a Malaysian citizen
S. Prabagaran, 29, was sentenced to death for drug trafficking. For his lawyer, “the prisoner was denied a fair trail;” he needs a review.
Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) - Today, representatives of the NGO Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) and Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suram) went to the High Commission of Singapore to ask for a review of the trial of S. Prabagaran, a 29-year-old Malaysian sentenced to death on drug trafficking charges.
The two organisations are urging Singaporean authorities to stop the execution and review the case by 6 February.
LFL representative Raul Lee Bhaskaran said: “We want to impress upon the Government of Singapore that we activists are not challenging the fact that a Malaysian citizen may be hanged. We are saying that the prisoner was denied a fair trial.”
"We urge the Malaysian government and the Wisma Putra (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to take legal action against Singapore because under Article 5, Prabagaran has the constitutional right to life,” Bhaskaran told reporters outside Malaysian High Commission.
The LFL representative said that on 16 January, his organisation asked for a judicial review hoping that the Malaysian government would seize the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to recognise the absence of a fair trial.
Prabagaran’s execution is set to take place in a matter of weeks. On 21 December, his mother handed over a memorandum to the authorities in Putrajaya (Malaysia’s new federal administrative centre), asking for action.
Prabagaran was convicted in 2012. When he arrived in Singapore, officers at an immigration checkpoint found 22.24 grams of diamorphine (heroin) in his car.
At his trial, he pleaded not guilty, claiming that the car he was driving was not his, and that he was not aware of the narcotics hidden in it.
He also claimed to have helped Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau to disrupt drug activities.
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