KUALA LUMPUR: Singapore has been urged to stay the execution of Sarawakian Michael Anak Garing.
This is so that Singapore President Halimah Yaacob can consider a clemency petition on the case said Lawyers for Liberty adviser N. Surendran.
Michael is on death row at Changi Prison and waiting for execution on Friday.
“Today the parents of Michael, Ensiring anak Garman and Garing anak Kanyan, have sent a clemency petition to the president of Singapore.
“Singapore law does not prevent a fresh petition of clemency from being lodged with the president,” he said in a statement.
Surendran said the petition dated March 19 was delivered to the Istana this morning by Michael’s brother and other family members.
In the petition, Michael’s parents asked for his life to be spared.
“We humbly ask the president of Singapore for mercy and compassion to spare the life of our son Michael.
“We do not want to excuse our son’s offence, but we ask for mercy.
“Please commute his sentence to life imprisonment,” Ensiring and Garing pleaded in the petition.
The parents also apologised to the family of the victim of the crime.
Ensiring and Garing said they appreciated the announcement today by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir of his support and efforts for the commutation of the death sentence.
“We hope the president of Singapore and the Singapore government will give very serious consideration to the parents’ clemency petition on behalf of Michael, and the appeal of Tun Mahathir and our government,” ,” Surendran said.
“Pending consideration of these matters, we respectfully ask that the Singapore authorities stay the execution planned for Friday.”
Michael and another Sarawakian were convicted of murder by the Singapore High Court in 2014 for killing a man during an armed robbery which took place in 2010.
Following amendments to Singapore’s Penal Code that came into effect in 2013, murder without an explicit intention to kill became punishable by life imprisonment and caning, or, at the judge’s discretion, by the imposition of a sentence of death.
At the co-defendants’ sentencing in April 2015, Michael was sentenced to death, having been identified as the one who had inflicted lethal wounds on the victim — a fact that he contested in his appeal to the Court of Appeal, which was rejected in 2017.
His co-defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane.
“Once again, Singapore threatens to inflict the kind of cruelty it claims to oppose. No matter how heinous the crime, the death penalty is a degrading and inhuman punishment. We denounce its use in all circumstances,” said Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Singapore Researcher at Amnesty International.
“The Singaporean authorities must immediately halt their plans to carry out this callous execution”, she added.