Singapore court orders lawyers for Malaysian drug traffickers to pay the cost

Singapore's Court of Appeal has ordered two lawyers who acted for Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran Dharmalingam to pay S$20,000 (RM64,000) to the country's Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC).

The AGC had originally sought S$40,000 in personal costs from the duo for filing unmeritorious applications and thus incurring unnecessary costs.

The Court of Appeal ordered M Ravi to bear 75 percent of the cost and Violet Netto to bear 25 percent.

In its ruling, the Court of Appeal said any reasonable defence counsel would agree that the case filed by Ravi and Violet lacked a factual basis and their case was an abuse of the court process.

According to Singapore's Straits Times newspaper, the duo did not put their best case forward from the onset and instead "drip-fed" the supposed evidence and tendered documents at the last possible moment.

Nagaenthran (above) was scheduled to be hanged on Nov 10 last year but was granted a stay of execution on Nov 8 after his Singaporean lawyer M Ravi filed an 11th-hour constitutional challenge.

Following this, the Singapore High Court dismissed the application. An appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed on March 29 this year.

Nagaenthran's mother filed another appeal two days before the new scheduled execution date of April 27. That too was unsuccessful.

In a tweet, Ravi said that at one point during the proceedings yesterday, he had told Singapore Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, who led the Court of Appeal panel, that "History will be with me and judge me." - Mkini