Two last-ditch attempts by a couple of convicted drug traffickers to escape their death sentences were dismissed by the Court of Appeal yesterday (16 February).
Roslan Bakar, a 51-year-old Singaporean; and Pausi Jefridin, a 37-year-old Malaysian, were sentenced to death in 2010, and over the years, they have challenged their death sentence without success.
Their lawyer, Charles Yeo, filed a criminal motion 2 days before their scheduled execution and asked the Court of Appeal for a review of their death sentence decision of 2018.
The motion was heard by the 3-judge apex court on Tuesday (15 February) and dismissed.
Yeo then applied to the High Court to commence judicial review proceedings, declaring the death sentence as unconstitutional and it was heard and dismissed by the High Court yesterday morning, but a temporary stay of execution was granted and it is pending appeal.
The appeal was then heard yesterday afternoon by a 3-judge apex court and dismissed, with Mr Yeo arguing that both Roslan and Pausi were intellectually disabled.
Senior State Counsel Francis Ng cited a previous judgment in written submissions and said that it doesn’t benefit anyone for there to be an endless inquiry with the same raised hopes and dashed expectations, and he called the endeavor “fruitless”.
Rosland and Pausi were both charged for trafficking 96.07 grams of heroin on 14 June 2009 and were convicted and sentenced to death on 22 April, after a 15-day trial.
An appeal was filed and it was then heard and dismissed on 17 March 2011, and Rosland then filed an application for a retrial on 30 January 2015, which was dismissed on 30 November 2011.
The argument from both men was that they were suffering from an abnormality of the mind, and a defense psychiatrist then assess Pausi’s IQ to be 67, while Roslan was then assessed by another psychiatrist to be borderline intelligent.
On 13 November 2017, The High Court then found that both men had displayed competence and comprehension of what they were doing at the time of the offence.