Singapore Wrestles With the Death Penalty

Word of death sometimes comes by the most bureaucratic means.

Notice that Pannir Selvam Pranthaman would be killed by the Singaporean government arrived at his sister’s home via DHL. The red-and-yellow envelope, delivered to Sangkari Pranthaman’s apartment in Kuala Lumpur on May 17, 2019, contained two letters: One stated that the president of Singapore had rejected Pannir’s clemency plea; the other informed Sangkari that her younger brother would shortly be hanged for bringing four small packets of heroin across the border into Singapore from Malaysia five years earlier. Last year, Singapore hanged 11 people, all for drug offenses. The country is only one of four known to still execute people for drug-related crimes, according to Amnesty International.

When the siblings were growing up in Ipoh, a hilly city in northwestern Malaysia, for several years they attended the same school, where Sangkari would try to keep an eye on her younger brother. He was “the naughtiest” of the family’s six children, she told me recently—he had a hard time paying attention and was always bouncing around. After school, she would report back to their strict Christian parents if she’d seen Pannir waiting outside the principal’s office to be disciplined. He didn’t appreciate the constant monitoring. As they grew into adulthood, she, of course, could not be her brother’s keeper.

After Pannir was originally arrested on drug charges, in September 2014, Sangkari reprised the childhood role of protective older sibling. First, she tracked down her brother in detention when he stopped responding to messages from family members. Then, in the years since, she has acted as his public advocate and a family spokesperson.

When Sangkari and Angelia, Pannir’s younger sister, speak about their brother, they tear up in laughter recalling their childhood, tear up in despondence at his current plight, and, occasionally, tear up