Parents send clemency petition for son's life to Singapore president

PETALING JAYA: The parents of Malaysian Michael Garing have sent a clemency petition for their son's life to the republic's president.

Michael is scheduled to be executed in Singapore on Friday (March 22)

The petition from Garing Ensiring Garman and Garing Kanyan was hand-delivered to the office of Halimah Yacob by Michael's brother and family members on Wednesday (March 20).

“We hope the President of Singapore and the Singapore government will give very serious consideration to the parent's clemency petition on behalf of Michael, the appeal of Tun Mahathir and our government.

Pending consideration of these matters, we respectfully ask that the Singapore authorities stay the execution planned for Friday,” said Lawyers for Liberty advisor N. Surendran.

Michael who is from Kapit, Sarawak, was convicted of murder by the Singapore high court in 2015, and its Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction in 2017.

Surendran said that Michael's parents have asked for their son's life to be spared and that they had apologised to the family of the victim of the crime.

They said, "We do not want to excuse our son's offence, but we ask for mercy. Please commute his sentence to life imprisonment".

“We greatly appreciate the announcement today by Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr Mahathir of his support and efforts for the commutation of the death sentence upon Michael,” said Surendran.

The government had said that they would submit a letter to Singapore to urge it to commute Michael's death sentence.

Michael and another Sarawakian, Tony Imba, were part of a gang that went on a robbery spree, severely injuring three victims and killing a fourth man in 2010.

The pair had attacked and robbed the four men in the Kallang area from late in the night of May 29, 2010, until the early hours of the next day.

The dead man had a fractured skull, a severed left hand, a slash wound across his neck and a back wound so deep that his shoulder blade was cracked.

Tony was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the robbery.