Singapore, Nov 8 (PTI) A Singapore court on Monday suspended the scheduled execution of a 33-year-old Indian-origin Malaysian man, convicted for drug trafficking, until an appeal is heard on Tuesday, amid global calls to spare him from the gallows.

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam was to be hanged at Changi Prison for drug trafficking on Wednesday.

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On Monday, Singapore's High Court suspended his scheduled execution until an appeal is heard during an online hearing, the Star Online website reported.

"The High Court has just ordered a stay of execution pending the hearing of the appeal to the Court of Appeal against the decision of the High Court," Nagaenthran's lawyer M Ravi posted on Facebook.

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The appeal is scheduled to be heard via videoconference on Tuesday. If the appeal is dismissed, Nagaenthran could be executed as scheduled.

Nagaenthran, who was arrested in 2009 at the age of 21 with a bundle of heroin strapped to his left thigh, had sought to challenge his execution, contending that he had the mental age of a person below 18 years of age.

During the hearing on Monday, his lawyer argued that the execution of intellectually disabled persons is prohibited under customary international law as this amounted to inhuman punishment.

He also claimed the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) has an "internal policy" not to execute convicts who are mentally disabled. But SPS has refuted the claim.

In his oral remarks dismissing the application, Justice See Kee Oon said there was no credible basis for Nagaenthran's assertions as to his mental age.

The alleged mental age was based on the opinion of his lawyer Ravi, who has no medical expertise and has met the prisoner only once, on November 2, for 26 minutes, the judge noted.

Justice See reiterated that Nagaenthran has been accorded due process in accordance with the law.

"It is not open to him to challenge the court's findings pertaining to his mental responsibility, whether directly or indirectly, in yet another attempt to revisit and unravel the finality of those findings," Justice See said.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in November 2010 for importing 42.72 grams of heroin in 2009.

The Misuse of Drugs Act provides for the death sentence where the amount of heroin imported is more than 15 grams.

The case came under the spotlight late last month when the Singapore Prison Service wrote a letter to Nagaenthran's mother on October 26, informing her that the death sentence on her son would be carried out on November 10.

The family was expected to travel from Ipoh, a major city in northern Peninsular Malaysia, to be with Nagaenthran at Singapore's Changi Prison. The prison's letter said the family would be allowed extended daily visits till November 10. The letter was circulated on social media.

Nagaenthran appealed to the Court of Appeal against his conviction and sentence, and his appeal was dismissed in September 2011.

In 2013, the law was changed to give judges the discretion to impose life terms and caning for drug couriers, instead of death, if specific conditions are met.

In 2015, he filed a resentencing application to set aside the sentence of death imposed on him, and to substitute it with life imprisonment.

The High Court dismissed this application in 2017, and the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal in 2019. His petition to the President Halimah Yacob for clemency was also unsuccessful.

Legal experts, activists and human rights groups in Malaysia have called for Nagaenthran's execution to be halted.

Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob also reportedly asked for leniency “purely on humanitarian grounds” in a letter addressed to Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, dated November 3, the Associated Press reported.

On Sunday, the European Union delegation to Singapore, along with the diplomatic missions of Norway and Switzerland, called for the execution to be halted, it said.

“Today, more than two thirds of the countries of the world have become abolitionist in law or practice, which confirms a global trend in favor of the abolition of the death penalty,” they said in a statement.

An online petition calling for him to be pardoned from the death sentence has since garnered more than 64,000 signatures. It argued that Nagaenthran should be spared the gallows because he had committed the offence under duress, and had been assessed to have a low IQ of 69.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)