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Singapore is set to execute on Thursday a Malaysian national convicted for trafficking 51.84g of heroin in 2014 amid desperate pleas by the man’s family to halt the death penalty.
Officials at the Singapore Prison Service have informed the family members of Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, 37, that his execution has been scheduled for Thursday.
Pranthaman was convicted of importing 51.84g of diamorphine into Singapore, one of the few Asian countries with strict and zero-tolerance laws against drug trafficking, in September 2014. He was found to have strapped three of the packets of diamorphine in his groin area and the fourth in the back seat compartment of his motorcycle and crossing Woodlands Checkpoint – one of Singapore’s two land border checkpoints.
A high court judge sentenced him to death and said that he was the “courier” involved in transporting the prohibited drug inside Singapore.
Singapore maintains a zero-tolerance towards drug-related offences and regards them as the “most serious crime”. The government says the death penalty is a deterrent against drug trafficking and that most of its citizens support capital punishment.
After Sunday’s message from the Singapore prison officials, his family has rushed from Malaysia for a final appeal to the courts for investigating the lawyer handling his case, stating that “his impending execution is causing us unimaginable grief and stress”.
His family said the lawyer representing Pranthaman till late last year was accused of illegal disclosure of confidential correspondence from death row inmates.
Pranthaman’s sister, Sangkari Pranthaman, said the lawyer had visited her brother in prison to pressure him into relieving him from service but later claimed in court that it was Pranthaman’s decision to let him go.
“For now we’re just hoping for the best. We are fasting and praying so that something good may happen. Even in these last moments we hope that something will happen to save my brother,” his brother Isaac Pranthaman told The Independent.
“I think God will help us as we pray and fast and depend on God. I believe He will send some people to help us,” he said.
This is the second death sentence Pranthaman is facing, with a previous execution order issued for 24 May 2019. He was granted reprieve a day before his execution was to be carried out by an appeals court, allowing Pranthaman to file an application to challenge his scheduled execution.
Human rights activists have called on officials in Singapore to halt the death penalty, calling it a violation of human rights protections.
“The alarming pace of executions carried out in Singapore since October shows a chilling determination on the part of the Government to pursue hangings. This includes for offences, such as transporting drugs in Pranthaman’s case, that must not be punished by death under international restrictions on the use of the death penalty,” said Chiara Sangiorgio, Amnesty International’s death penalty expert, said.
Singapore has carried out nine executions between 1 October 2024 and 7 February 2025, including eight of individuals convicted of drug trafficking. The Asian country remains one of only five recording drug related executions in 2023.
“We urge the Singapore government to immediately end its unlawful resort to the death penalty and immediately establish a moratorium on all executions as a first critical step towards abolition,” Ms Sangiorgio said, calling the execution sentence “beyond reproachable”.
“There is still time to change course and prevent this cruel and senseless execution from happening,” she said.
