Pannir to hang tomorrow after S'pore court rejects final appeal

Summary

• Malaysian death row inmate Pannir Selvam Pranthaman will be hanged tomorrow after a final appeal was rejected.

• Pannir’s lawyer N Surendran says this is the end of the road, but urges the Singapore government not to go ahead with the execution and for Putrajaya to intervene.

Singaporean authorities are slated to hang Malaysian death row inmate Pannir Selvam Pranthaman tomorrow, after a final bid for reprieve was rejected.

Nevertheless, human rights lawyer N Surendran - who is representing Pannir – urged the Singapore government not to go ahead with the execution, and for the Malaysian government to intervene.

“This is the end of the road. There is no longer any legal process to prevent the execution tomorrow morning.

“The stay is dismissed, but we still urge the Singapore government not to proceed with the execution.

We also call upon the Malaysian government and the prime minister to intervene urgently to stop the execution at dawn,” he told Malaysiakini following the Singapore Court of Appeal judgment.

In the written judgment issued tonight, the judge Woo Bih Li said there are no extraordinary circumstances in Pannir’s case that would warrant a stay on his execution, and therefore dismissed his application for a stay of execution without an oral hearing.

The court had earlier unexpectedly vacated the hearing, which was scheduled for 3pm today.

Surendran (above) said the court sent a letter earlier informing the defence that the hearing had been vacated and that the matter would instead be decided summarily in chambers by a single judge of the Court of Appeal.

“The application for stay of execution was fixed for hearing at 3pm today. However, the court has now vacated it and will decide the matter summarily in chambers,” Surendran (above) told Malaysiakini when contacted.

Case background

The Singapore High Court, on May 2, 2017, convicted Pannir for importing not less than 51.84g of diamorphine into Singapore. He was sentenced to the mandatory death penalty.

The Singapore Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on Feb 9, 2018, and a clemency petition to the Singapore president was rejected.

Pannir was granted a stay of execution twice. The first was in May 2019, on the basis that he intended to challenge the rejection of his clemency petition and the public prosecutor’s decision not to issue a certificate of substantive assistance to him.

The second stay of execution was granted in February 2025, pending the determination of a post-appeal application in a capital case.

The Singapore Court of Appeal dismissed his bid for a stay of execution on Sept 6.

Police say no grounds to support Pannir

Bukit Aman today concluded that there are no reasonable grounds to justify extending its support to Pannir, who is scheduled for execution in Singapore tomorrow, for cross-border drug trafficking offences.

Deputy Home Minister Shamsul Anuar Nasarah said the conclusion was reached after two rounds of investigations conducted by the police, adding that the information provided by the suspect held no "operational value" for the police.

“The summary, in both phases of the investigation, police reviewed every aspect of the case and concluded that there were no reasonable grounds for police to express support for the suspect.

“The information provided by the suspect had no operational value for police to pursue further investigations,” Shamsul told the Dewan Rakyat during a special chamber session this afternoon.

He added that during the investigation process, police had also detained several individuals named by Pannir, but found no links between them and the suspect’s case.

Last week, DAP national legal bureau chairperson Ramkarpal Singh urged the Singapore government to halt Pannir's execution, citing his role as a key witness in an ongoing police probe.

Ramkarpal said that the Malaysian police are still investigating the drug syndicate which Pannir operated as a mule for, and that several police officers from Bukit Aman were granted access to Pannir at Changi Prison on Sept 27.

The Singaporean court ruled that it is “speculative” and “hearsay” to suggest that the information provided by Pannir had led Malaysian authorities to arrest the syndicate’s members.

In addition, Singapore’s Misuse of Drugs Act requires substantive assistance to be provided to its Central Narcotics Bureau, not a foreign law enforcement agency like Bukit Aman.

Bukit Aman finds no grounds to support death row inmate Pannir

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