Two brothers’ execution halted after 11th hour appeal for mercy

KUALA LUMPUR — Two brothers, Rames and Suthar Batumalai, temporarily avoided execution on Friday (Feb 24) after their family filed a plea for clemency on Thursday over their murder conviction.

Uma Muthukrishnan, who is the duo’s sister, said a police officer had informed her that the execution has been stayed.

“According to him, the execution is postponed, but we don’t know when is the postponed date. It’s not today, confirmed not today, but don’t know when,” she told Malay Mail Online on Friday.

She said the “whole family” or 26 family members visited the brothers — both of whom are not married — in the Kajang prison on Thursday.

Lawyer Haresh Mahadevan, who was appointed only on Thursday to file a clemency petition for the duo, said the application for a stay of execution was submitted at around 3pm to 4pm on Thursday to the Negri Sembilan Pardons Board via the state’s Mentri Besar’s office.

Haresh said the receipt of the clemency petition was acknowledged by both the Kajang Prison and the Negri Sembilan Mentri Besar’s Office, but said the authorities have yet to contact him yet regarding the petition.

“I hope so that the stay today is in view of this fresh petition!” he told Malay Mail Online when contacted on Friday.

The family has said that no clemency petitions were filed previously while prison authorities said one was filed previously, Haresh said, adding however that there is no bar against the filing of a fresh petition.

According to Mr Haresh, the family had only found out that the two were to be executed after they received a Feb 18 letter at 2pm on Wednesday.

The letter from the Kajang prison director Datuk Narander Singh was sent via registered post, he said.

In the letter sighted by Malay Mail Online, the brothers’ mother was informed that close family members would be allowed a final visit on February 23 after 9am at the Kajang prison. The letter said the death sentence would be carried out soon.

Citing Uma, Haresh said the family had visited the two brothers in the past in the Kluang prison and Bentong prison, and that the duo were shifted from Bentong prison this Wednesday to the Kajang prison for their execution.

Earlier on Friday, Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu told Malay Mail Online that the usual practice in Malaysia would see convicts on the death row being executed on Friday mornings between 5.30am to 6am. MALAY MAIL ONLINE