KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 27 — Shahrul Izani Suparman will now see his 33rd birthday and hopefully more after the Sultan of Selangor granted him a royal pardon.
Shahrul’s mother Sapinah Nawawi said that initially when she was asked to go to the Sungai Buloh prison early last week, she was fearful that it was about her son’s execution.
Her fear turned to relief when she found out that the fifth of her eight children would be spared death by hanging.
“I am happy, just that he is not released yet, that’s all, but we know he is not dying,” she told reporters here, adding that the Selangor Pardons Board had found her son to be an inmate with good behaviour and who did not fight in the prisons cell.
“The estimated (date of release) is 2030, but that is just an estimate… after five years we can plead again, in four years’ time we can plead for his release,” she said, adding that her son would want to continue furthering his studies when he is released.
She revealed that Shahrul, who was just over 18 when he was arrested in 2003, had then completed his SPM studies.
“If it is possible, (let it be) earlier, I have waited 13 years, going to and fro every week, I give him moral support, because he was already on the death row, I was afraid he would do anything due to the stress inside… so to avoid him from facing tension, the whole family would give support, every week I will visit him,” she said,
“He said ‘Mum, others never get visit, until they hang themselves before they are hanged because they face too much pressure, their families didn’t visit’; he is thankful that his family still loves him even though he is on death row,” she said.
She said Shahrul always prays on Fridays — the day of the week where executions of death row inmates are carried out.
Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu said the human rights group welcomed the news that Shahrul will be spared the noose, noting that they had been pushing for this since 2015.
“In a few short weeks on March 9, Shahrul will celebrate his 33rd birthday, outside the shadow of the death penalty,” she said in a statement today.
“This is a battle won because a life has been saved, but the war against the use of death penalty continues. Shahrul is one of over a thousand people waiting to be executed,” she added.
Amnesty International collected 10,505 signatures both from within Malaysia and overseas in a 2015 campaign calling for Shahrul’s pardon, the group said.
Highlighting the case of brothers Rames and Suthar Batumalai who still do not know when they will be executed after a temporary reprieve last Friday, Shamini also said the secrecy over executions in Malaysia is tarnishing the country’s human rights record.
“Now that the Sultan of Selangor has granted Shahrul’s clemency application, we hope that the federal government would exercise political will and abolish the mandatory death penalty as a first step towards total abolition,” she said, also adding that Malaysia should freeze the use of the death penalty.
In information provided by Amnesty International Malaysia, Shahrul was arrested on September 25, 2003 when police found 622 grammes of cannabis in two separate newspaper-wrapped packages in the motorcycle that he had borrowed, which led to him being charged with drug trafficking under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act.
On June 26, 2012, the Federal Court upheld the death sentence handed by the Shah Alam High Court on December 8, 2009.
Sapinah said Shahrul had merely borrowed the motorcycle of a villager — which was commonly used by others in their village — and that he had not seen the drugs that was obscured by jackets.
