Lawyer moves to halt hangings

Press, 24 June 1986, Page 10

Lawyer moves to halt hangings

NZPA-Reuter Kuala Lumpur The lawyer for one of two Australians condemned to hang for drug trafficking in Malaysia, said yesterday that he was seeking a stay of execution. Mr Karpal Singh said he had filed a suit against the Penang Pardons Board complaining that it had not let him plead when it met on Saturday and confirmed death sentences on his client, Kevin Barlow, and another Australian, Brian Chambers. "Rejection of my application ... has resulted in a manifest injustice,” his suit read. Mr Karpal said that he or Barlow should have

been at the hearing because the Board — the final panel for appeal — considered a submission

from Malaysia’s AttorneyGeneral. “No-one should be condemned on the basis of a written opinion of which he is unaware. Natural

justice demands that the plaintiff should have been

allowed to be represented,” his affidavit said.

"The supreme penalty of death is a most serious matter, and every latitude ought to be given to the condemned to put up his plea ... Surely such a written opinion could not be considered behind the back of the condemned man who has no inkling whatsoever of the contents,” it said. Barlow and Chambers, both aged 28, were arrested in Penang in November, 1983, with 180 g of heroin, well above the 15g limit at which the holder is deemed to be a trafficker, with a mandatory death sentence on conviction.

They were convicted last July after a trial in which they blamed each other. The trial and Supreme Court judges hearing their appeals ruled that they had planned and acted in concert.

If the two are hanged, they will be the first Westerners to die under Malaysia’s tough anti-nar-cotics laws.

The death penalty on a French secretary, Beatrice Saubin, handed down in 1982 before death was made mandatory for trafficking, was later commuted to life imprisonment. Malaysia has hanged 36 people for drugs offences since 1975, including nationals of South-East Asian countries. Another 107 people are on death row, pending appeals. Relatives of Barlow and Chambers are in Kuala Lumpur for final visits to the two men in Pudu Prison. Meanwhile, a Channel Nine telephone poll in Australia, yesterday, found that most Australians agree with the deci-

sion to hang Barlow and Chambers. The television station said nearly 40,000 people

responded to the national poll. To the question, “Do you agree with the Malaysian court’s decision to hang Chambers and Bar-

low?”, 20,760 people said yes and 19,010 said no.