SINGAPORE: A convicted drug courier on death row successfully had his execution stayed a day before his scheduled execution.
Pannir Selvam Pranthaman was scheduled for execution on Thursday (Feb 20) but sought permission to make a post-appeal application in a capital case before the Court of Appeal.
Judge of the Appellate Division Woo Bih Li heard the application and granted Pannir permission to make his appeal, hence ordering a stay of execution.
The court’s decision is the latest in Pannir’s long-drawn fight against his capital punishment.
Pannir was convicted on May 2, 2017 on a single charge for importing no less than 51.84g of diamorphine into Singapore and received the mandatory capital punishment.
He filed an appeal against his conviction and sentence but this was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Feb 9, 2018.
After the dismissal, Pannir, his family and his lawyers submitted petitions for clemency to the president, who then declined to commute the death sentence.
Pannir and his family were informed that he would be executed on May 24, 2019.
Three days before this scheduled execution, Pannir filed another application seeking a stay of his execution to challenge the outcome of the clemency petition, among other grounds.
The stay was granted and Pannir was given time to file his application.
Another series of applications and judicial review proceedings followed, including one where he was part of a group of inmates who sought recourse over the Singapore Prison Service’s (SPS) disclosure of prisoners’ correspondence with other people to the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC).
In this case, the court ruled in October 2024 that the SPS and AGC had acted in breach of prisoners’ confidentiality by disclosing and retaining their letters.
PRESENT APPEAL
On Jan 27, 2025, the president issued an order for the applicant to be executed on Feb 20, 2025. Pannir received notice of this on Feb 16, 2025.
Representing himself, Pannir advanced the present application based on three grounds:
- His complaint to the Law Society of Singapore against his former lawyer Ong Ying Ping.
- A constitutional challenge regarding the presumptions in certain sections of the Misuse of Drugs Act.
- The disclosure of his correspondence by the SPS to the AGC brought the administration of justice into disrepute.
Pannir’s complaint to the Law Society include the allegations that Mr Ong had pressured and misled him into signing a notice to act in person, and that the lawyer refused to represent him only three days before a hearing in August 2024.
Pannir argued that the proceedings against Mr Ong may require his involvement as a “material witness”.
Justice Woo found that the proceedings did not have any bearing on the propriety of Pannir’s conviction or sentence. However the judge found that there was a “reasonable prospect of success” for Pannir’s application based on this ground.
Likewise, Justice Woo found the same for the application based on the constitutional challenge, which Pannir argued would have a “fundamental impact” on his conviction if successful.
Justice Woo granted Pannir permission to make his application based on these two grounds, but dismissed the third.
To this, he said: “It is neither here nor there whether the unlawful disclosure of the applicant’s correspondence has brought the administration of justice into disrepute.
“The critical question is whether the disclosure had the effect of calling into question the propriety of the applicant’s conviction and sentence,” said Justice Woo, who added that this question had been answered in the negative by the Court of Appeal in a previous hearing.
The Court of Appeal ordered a stay of executive pending the application.
