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DEATH PENALTY-MALAYSIA: Delays Put Execution Under Scrutiny
By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 17 (IPS) - Lawyers and opposition legislators are among a growing number of people expressing concern over the drawn out suffering of those on death row in this conservative country where many have supported execution for non-lethal crimes like drug trafficking, rape and possession of firearms.
In the latest widely-reported case held up by critics as an example of how a death sentence often amounts to a double punishment of years - even decades - of solitary confinement before execution, a housewife failed to get her murder conviction set aside because she had been blocked in filing an appeal for almost six years.
In May, a court of appeal apologised to R. Amathevelli, a mother of three, for being forced to wait so long to lodge an appeal against her 2001 death sentence for the murder of a store owner. But the delay, caused by a trial judge failing to supply a written judgement for more than five years, was not a ground for overturning her sentence, the court ruled.
Karpal Singh, Amathevelli’s defence lawyer, had argued his client’s prolonged detention awaiting an appeal had prejudiced her case. Her continued detention on death row would amount to miscarriage of justice and she should be immediately set free.
"We can’t accept this decision and are filing an appeal," Singh told IPS. "We will fight for her rights all the way."
Singh, also a prominent opposition lawmaker, added: "Her plight is galvanising public opinion against death penalty ... such an ultimate punishment has no place in the criminal justice system of Malaysia. All death sentences should be commuted to life imprisonment immediately."
Other opposition MPs have also taken up the Amathevelli case.
"The long delay in providing a written judgement is … reason enough to free Amathevelli," Murugesan Kulasegaran told IPS. "She is a victim of an inefficient and plodding judiciary, she should be freed instantly.
"Her case illustrates how outdated and skewed our laws are. The thinking behind out criminal justice system has remained unchanged since the colonial Victorian era when this country was first colonised."
Kulasegaran has vowed to raise the matter in parliament and internationalise the case by bringing it before the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Forum.
The Malaysian Bar Council, an association of 12,000 lawyers, has been vocal in its criticism of the appeal court ruling, arguing that such enforced delays in filing appeals should be a ground for reducing sentences.
"The appeal court could have commuted the murder charge on Amathevelli to culpable homicide not amounting to murder because it was the judiciary that was responsible for the delay," said council vice-chairman Ragu Kesavan. "This judgement is a step in the wrong direction."
He added that increasing numbers of Malaysians were recognising the death penalty as a barbaric practice and the government needed to keep in step with public opinion and abolish it.
In March 2006, the Bar Council passed a resolution calling for an end to the death penalty in the country and for all death sentences to be commuted.
"The uncertain and indefinite waiting and fearing for the final moment constitutes inhumane psychological torture, the nature of which those who have not suffered the experience will not even begin to comprehend," Bar Council chairman Yeo Yang Poh said at the time, adding that the suffering was intensified by the solitary confinement on death row.
Recent press reports of the conditions of condemned drug traffickers on Malaysia’s death row, is also playing a role in growing opposition to the death penalty.
The plight of some 230 migrants from Aceh, the northern Indonesian province on the island of Sumatra, is receiving wide publicity both in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Poverty and the severe dislocation of Acehnese society caused by the 2004 tsunami, has forced a large number to migrate to Malaysia in search of jobs.
Some among them are trafficking in marijuana which is widely grown in Aceh, police officials told IPS. Many of the Acehnese put on trial for drug trafficking, a capital offence in Malaysia, are actually dislocated migrants looking for a way to feed their families, the officials said.
Public sympathy is also growing for the young Malaysian women incarcerated in foreign jails, some facing the death penalty, after being convicted of serving as drug mules for foreign drug syndicates.
Their plight is gaining prominence both in the media, government circles and in parliament.
"People are finally coming together against the death penalty," said human rights lawyer Ramu Annamalai Kandasamy. "People see the plight of death row convicts like Amathevelli and the Acehnese." They are concerned over the fate of Malaysians in foreign jails.
"People are beginning to realise the death penalty is cruel and against all norms of decency," he told IPS. "If the opposition builds up into a critical mass we can have the death penalty abolished for good."
Amnesty International (AI) in its latest annual report expressed concern over the secretive nature of the death penalty in Malaysia. AI believes that executions may have taken place in 2007. There were reports that 12 people were condemned to death by Malaysian courts in 2007.
Between 1970 and October 2001, 359 people were executed in Malaysia, most of them for trafficking in drugs.
(END/2008)
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