Singapore court dismisses death row trio's applications

The Singapore High Court has dismissed the applications involving three men who are on death row in the island republic, including Malaysian Pausi Jefridin.

The court had on Feb 28 heard the trios challenge on the constitutionality of their death penalty and issued its judgment yesterday.

“The court has dismissed the applications for Pausi, Roslan (Bakar) and Rosman (Abdullah),” the head coordinator of human rights group Lawyers for Liberty, Zaid Malek, told Bernama last night.

Roslan and Rosman are Singaporeans.

“They will appeal. It has to be filed within one month,” said Zaid.

Roslan, 51, and his co-accused Pausi, 37, were charged with trafficking in not less than 96.07gm of heroin on June 14, 2008.

Both were sentenced to death in 2010 and were scheduled to be hanged on Feb 16, 2022.

Bid to declare death sentences unconstitutional rejected

Two days before the scheduled execution, the pair’s counsel filed a criminal motion, asking the Court of Appeal to review its 2018 decision on the death sentences but it was heard and dismissed the next day.

The counsel then filed another application to the High Court seeking to start judicial review proceedings to declare that the death sentences were unconstitutional.

This was heard and dismissed by the High Court that heard their application on the day they were supposed to be executed but a temporary stay of execution was granted pending appeal.

The appeal was heard on the same afternoon (Feb 16) and dismissed.

In both bids, the counsel contended that Roslan and Pausi, a Sabahan, were intellectually disabled.

Pausi and Roslan had also been granted a respite order by the republic’s President, Halimah Yacob, on Feb 17, 2022.

Rosman was convicted in 2011 on a drug offence as well and was supposed to be executed on Feb 23, 2022.

- Bernama