Three Malaysians on death row in Singapore for drug trafficking will have their appeals reviewed before the republic’s appellate court on Friday.
Datchinamurthy Kataiah, Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, and Saminathan Selvaraju are among the 12 individuals whose appeals will be heard, according to Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network's Dobby Chew.
Gobi Avedian, a fourth Malaysian who was convicted of drug offences but not given the death penalty, will also appeal his case.
Chew stated that the convicted Malaysians were appealing their convictions on the grounds that their private correspondence with their lawyers had been duplicated and transmitted to the Attorney-Chambers General's (AGC) on many times without their knowledge or approval.
"A part of this correspondence contained confidential discussions with attorneys. The AGC was also responsible for prosecuting these inmates."
"Last year, the High Court dismissed a civil claim filed by the convicts against the AGC," he told FMT.
Last year, Datchinamurthy was scheduled to be executed. However, he was able to obtain a stay of execution from the Singapore High Court at the 11th hour pending his legal challenge against the Singapore government over his death sentence.
In 2011, he was accused of importing 44.96g of diamorphine into Singapore and in 2015 he was sentenced to death.
Pannir was charged with heroin trafficking in Singapore in 2017, while Saminathan and two others were accused with diamorphine trafficking in 2013.
According to Chew, Gobi was detained on Dec 11, 2014 at the Woodlands Checkpoint and later issued a capital charge of smuggling 40.22g of heroin but a High Court judge acquitted him of the capital charge and reduced it to one of attempted narcotics importation in 2017.
Gobi now faces a 15-year prison term and 10 canings, with the penalty backdated to the day of his arrest.
Kalwant Singh was the last Malaysian to be executed in Singapore for narcotics offenses. He was executed in July.
In June 2016, Kalwant was found guilty of having 60.15 grams of diamorphine and trafficking 120.9 grams of the substance within the city-state.
Prior to that, Malaysian Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam was executed for heroin trafficking in Singapore on April 27.
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