Singapore NGOs have expressed disappointment with the Singapore's highest court - the Court of Appeal - for dismissing the appeal of Yong Vui Kong, a Malaysian awaiting his death sentence for a drug-related offence.

NONE 23-year-old Yong had appealed against a High Court ruling dismissing his earlier application to declare that Singapore Law Minister K Shanmugam’s public comments had irreversibly tainted his clemency petition.

“The Think Centre and the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign find the verdict announced by Singapore's Court of Appeal highly disappointing,” said the NGOs in a joint statement today.

“We also find it daunting that the president of Singapore has no apparent right to decide against the advice of the cabinet regarding the granting of clemency appeals."

The NGOs argued that the execution of Yong has no value and is an ineffective deterrent, as the drug masterminds have been allowed to escape “scot free” while the “drug mules are being hanged”.

They called on the government give Yong a second chance and to  those in the same predicament, as they are “mostly marginalised youths who were led astray.”

    

The NGOs reminded the government also that at the UN General Assembly, 109 countries voted in favour of a moratorium on executions as a step towards abolishing the death penalty.

“We call on the government to immediately commute Yong Vui Kong's sentence and declare moratorium on all death sentences.”

The young Sabahan has been battling his death sentence since he was sentenced in November 2009 to death for trafficking in 47.27g of diamorphine.

He was 19 years old at the time.

His case has attracted much public attention in Malaysia and Singapore, where a petition calling for his sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment has collected more than 100,000 signatures.

'A mockery' of clemency plea

Meanwhile the Save Vui Kong Campaign (SVKC) also expressed disappointment, pointing out that the decision means that Yong’s appeal will now have to be directed to the Singapore cabinet.

save yong vui kong signature campaign ss2 kick off “Ironically, Vui Kong now has to plea to the cabinet vis-a-vis the president for clemency, knowing very well that his plea will be rejected, as the Law Minister Mr K Shanmugan has made it blantantly clear in his statement, which states ‘Yong Vui Kong, he is young, but if we let him go, what is the signal we are sending.’”

The group said the decision makes it “clear” that it is the cabinet who will ultimately decide on Yong’s clemency plea.

“With this in mind, what can Vui Kong expect the cabinet will decide on his plea for clemency?” the group asked.

It called the decision a mockery of the Singapore constitution’s provision for a clemency appeal when in reality, the cabinet has already decided no one will escape the gallows.