KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 — In a race against time, lawyers for death row inmate S Prabagaran urged the Singapore Prisons Department where he is held and the Malaysian government to enable their meeting before his execution.

The Singapore prison authority refused their request on February 13, N Surendran and Latheefa Koya said today, adding that it was a violation of a basic human right and Article 14(3)(d) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

"We call upon the Singapore government to review this decision and allow us immediate access to our client,” the Malaysian lawyers said in a joint statement.

They said the matter is urgent because they needed to consult Prabagaran — who maintains he is innocent — on a judicial review filing in the Malaysian High Court to compel the federal government’s intervention in the cross-border case after exhausting all appeals in the Singapore legal system.

"We further urge the Malaysian government to make the necessary representations to the Singapore government to ensure that their citizen is afforded his basic legal right of access to his lawyers,” Surendran and Latheefa added.

Prabagaran was arrested on a drug charge in 2012 when a car he was driving at the immigration checkpoint was found to contain 22.24g of diamorphine, the pure form of heroin.

He had however claimed that the car he was driving belonged to other individuals and that he was not aware of the presence of the drugs in the car.