Outcry as Singapore executes man with learning difficulties over drugs offence

Campaigners decry broken system' in Singapore that disproportionately punishes drug mules rather than those who coerce them into work

A man with learning difficulties has been executed in Singapore for attempting to smuggle a small amount of heroin, despite repeated pleas for his life to be spared, in a case campaigners have described as a tragic miscarriage of justice".

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a Malaysian national, was arrested in 2009, aged 21, for attempting to carry 43g of heroin - about three tablespoons - into Singapore. He was sentenced to death the following year, and then spent more than a decade on death row.