A Singaporean human rights lawyer is shocked over de facto Law Minister Mohd Nazri Aziz's indifferent attitude towards the fate of a young Malaysian prisoner on death row across the causeway.

NONE M. Ravi ( right ), the lawyer for 22-year old Yong Vui Kong, who faces the gallows in August for a drug trafficking charge in 2007, said the minister has failed to study the case in detail before commenting about it.

"The key issue surrounding the matter was the fact that Yong was denied the clemency process when it was filed in December last year," said Ravi, who managed to delay the execution on Dec 4 when he filed a petition for his client.

"The denial of due process to a helpless Malaysian citizen who is facing imminent death in a few weeks, calls for immediate attention from the Malaysian government to file a complaint at the International Court of Justice.

"Otherwise, what is the ICJ for then?" he queried when contacted in Singapore.

Ravi said if a similar incident had happened to an American, Australian or European citizen, their governments would have responded properly as they had in the past.

Minister ‘in the dark'

Ravi was responding to remarks made by Nazri on Monday that he was in the dark about the well-known case .

nazri abdul aziz Nazri ( left ), who is a minister in the Prime Minister's Department, claimed that it was the first time he had heard about Yong.

When details were given, Nazri simply said that Malaysia will not interfere in its neighbour's legal processes.

"The minister (Nazri) is sending a dangerous signal to the Singaporean government for treating Yong's case in a brazen manner," stressed Ravi.

He urged the minister to study details of his press conference on June 10 at the Bar Council in Kuala Lumpur where he had listed the legal issues of the case.

"He (Nazri) should at least invite Yong's lawyer to understand the concerns surrounding this poor Malaysian boy due to be hanged unfairly," he added.

But Nazri is not the only law minister who has dismissed Yong's case.

Yong, who was only 19 when arrested in Singapore for trafficking 47grams of heroin into the republic, failed in seeking clemency when the country's law minister made a "prejudicial comment" about his case.

The remark could have been a factor in the rejection of Yong's petition by Singapore's President SR Nathan.

Ravi reiterated that following the rejection, the Malaysian government could have filed a complaint at the ICJ and obtained a stay of Yong's execution until the ICJ decided whether he is being unlawfully punished under the Singapore Constitution and other local laws.

Ravi said the case was not whether Malaysians and Singaporeans suffer the same mandatory death penalty.

"It is about Yong's final hope or relief but the clemency process has been shut on him," he added.