KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 16 — The United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) has called on Singapore to halt the planned execution of Malaysian death row inmate S. Prabagaran for drug trafficking.

In a statement posted in its Facebook page, OHCHR’s South East Asia Regional office also urged the Singapore government to immediately reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty.

“We call on Singapore to halt the scheduled execution of Malaysian national S Prabagaran, and urge the Government to immediately reinstate a moratorium on the use of the death penalty,” it said.

It noted that in international law, the death penalty can only be used for “the most serious crimes”, which it said should refer to international killing.

“Drug-related offences do not fall under the threshold of ‘most serious crimes’. Furthermore, under domestic law, the death penalty is not mandatory for drug-related offences,” it said.

“The death penalty is not an effective deterrent relative to other forms of punishment nor does it protect people from drug abuse. The focus of drug-related crime prevention should involve strengthening the justice system and making it more effective,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said.

Prabagaran, 29, has exhausted all his appeals and is set to face execution in a few weeks.

He was arrested at the Singaporean immigration checkpoint in 2012 after 22.24 grams of diamorphine, a pure form of heroin, was found in the car he was driving.

Prabagaran has maintained his innocence throughout, claiming that the car did not belong to him and he did not know the presence of the drugs.

He also reportedly identified individuals who owned the car, but the individuals have not been pursued by Singaporean authorities.

Prabagaran along with his mother V. Eswary earlier today filed judicial review application at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur to compel the Malaysian government to file a case against Singapore at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a bid to halt the execution.

Prabagaran’s lawyer N. Surendran previously said that the move was his client’s final avenue and hoped to stop his execution. His lawyers had also claimed that he had not received a fair trial.