Alienated, with no end in sight

During his nine years on death row, David Wang spent 23 hours a day alone in his cell.

FOR nine years, David Wang was on death row.

He had been sentenced to death by the Kuala Terengganu High Court for drug trafficking in 1989. His lawyer Karpal Singh appealed on his behalf up to the Federal Court in 1991, and again in 1996 after more evidence came up.

“I was alone in my cell most of the day,” remembers Wang, who was freed in 1998 after the then Sultan of Terengganu, Sultan Mahmud Al-Muktafi Billah Shah, commuted his death sentence to life imprisionment. By then, he had served more than two-thirds of that term.

He was allowed outdoors to exercise for about 15 minutes, twice a day.

Unlike non-death row prisoners, he was not allowed to attend classes or religious instruction.

Besides weekly visits from his family and Malaysian Care staff, Wang had little human interaction.

When death row prisoners spend about 23 hours daily alone in their cells, this amounts to solitary confinement, argues outgoing Suhakam commissioner James Nayagam. This “severe punishment shall be used only for very short periods, for very serious breaches of prison rules.”

On top of that, the years of uncertainty over when they will be executed give death row prisoners “severe anxiety, causing mental illnesses”.

In some countries, Nayagam points out, “If you are not executed within three years of your sentence, it is commuted to life imprisonment.”

Penang Pardons Board member Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar agrees that if a prisoner has spent an “inordinate time” on death row, there are grounds for commuting it to life imprisonment. But in Penang, where the Pardons Board meets regularly and there is no backlog of appeals, he has not seen any petitions from prisoners on death row for over three years.

A spokesman from the Selangor Pardons Board secretariat says the Government is “seriously looking into” requests from non-governmental organisations that drug traffickers – who form the majority on death row – have the death sentence penalty law changed to life imprisonment.

“That’s why in some trafficking cases, the Pardons Boards tend to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment. There will be changes... they are taking steps.”

Kenneth Wong, who was director of Malaysian Care’s Prison, Drugs and AIDS Department until this year, also pleads on behalf of those sentenced to “natural life” or life until death. “Prisoners should know how long they will be in prison for their crimes and when they will be released,” he says. “I call on the Pardons Boards to immediately reduce all natural life sentences to life sentences or less.”

Sam Kian Seng has spent 28 years in Kajang Prison serving a natural life sentence and officials there have strongly supported his appeals to the Federal Pardons Board. They report that he is an exemplary prisoner. By one account, he has been such an inspiration to prisoners that when they are about to be released, they transfer the money in their prison accounts to him.

Asked what he would do if pardoned, Sam says, “First, I would thank God, and then I would go to Malaysian Care and be an evangelist.”

Nayagam notes that in the United States, prisoners can appear before the Pardons Board but, he adds, the victim or the family of the victim also meets the Board.

There are those who worry about time constraints if that were to be introduced here. “There are a number of applications and we need to make the process as efficient as possible,” says Malik. However, a statement by the prisoner or an interview with him or her would be useful.

But Wang wishes prisoners could present their own case to the Board. Many have little education, he points out, and have trouble expressing themselves well in writing.