Singapore executes Malaysian convict hours after last appeal

SINGAPORE – A Malaysian man convicted of murder in Singapore was executed Friday hours after the city-state’s highest court rejected a last-minute appeal, police said.

The Court of Appeal found no merit in the appeal by a lawyer representing Kho Jabing that challenged the constitutionality of the death penalty in Singapore. The decision ended a brief stay of execution, but the court left the timing of the execution to prison authorities.

Rachel Zheng of the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign said it was the first time an execution in Singapore had proceeded on the same day that an appeal was dismissed.

“All of us are in deep shock,” she said after being informed by Kho’s family that he had been executed.

The Singapore Police Force’s statement said the death sentence was carried out after Kho had been “accorded full due process under the law.”

Kho, 31, was accused of using a tree branch to assault and rob a construction worker in 2008. The worker died from multiple skull fractures and Kho was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010.

What followed was six years of legal twists during which he was sentenced to death, won appeals, resentenced to life imprisonment and caning, and again sentenced to death.

The European Union and Amnesty International had called on Singapore to grant Kho clemency, but applications to the president were rejected.

Executions in Singapore are by hanging, and are usually carried out before dawn at Changi prison. According to the prison records, Singapore executed four people in 2015, one for murder and three for drug crimes.

In 2012, Singapore amended its laws on the death penalty, making it no longer mandatory for those convicted of drug trafficking or murder to receive death sentences.