Who was Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam? Malaysian drug trafficker executed by hanging in Singapore

A Malaysian drug smuggler was executed by a Singapore court on Wednesday, April 27 2022, his sister confirmed to the BBC.

Nagaenthran Dharmalingam had been sentenced to death for more than a decade for attempting to smuggle three tablespoons of heroin into Singapore. His case was hugely controversial because a medical expert determined he had an IQ of 69, which indicates an intellectual disability.

However, the government stated that he “clearly understood the nature of his acts.” The government previously stated that he “did not lose his sense of judgement of the rightness or wrongness of what he was doing.”

Earlier on Tuesday, April 26 2022 the court dismissed his mother’s last-ditch appeal, saying Nagaenthran had been given “due process by the law,” and that he had “exhausted his rights of appeal and almost every other recourse under the law over some 11 years.”

According to Reuters, at the end of Tuesday’s hearing, Nagaenthran and his family reached through a gap in a glass screen to tightly grasp each other’s hands as they wept. In the courtroom, his cries of “ma” could be heard.