SINGAPORE - Malaysian news portal MalaysiaNow has been ordered to carry correction notices over false statements in a Nov 9 article concerning the treatment of Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, a drug courier who was executed on Oct 8.
The Pofma Office, which administers the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, was instructed by Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs Edwin Tong to issue the correction direction to MalaysiaNow under Singapore’s fake news law, said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Nov 15.
Under the order, MalaysiaNow will be required to carry correction notices alongside the article on its website, Facebook, X and LinkedIn posts.
MHA’s Nov 15 statement identified five broad falsehoods in the MalaysiaNow article.
The first false statement was that Pannir’s execution was carried out without regard for the rule of law, said MHA, noting that all prisoners awaiting capital punishment are afforded due legal process.
An execution will only be scheduled when such prisoners have exhausted all legal processes in relation to their conviction and sentence, and after the issue of clemency has been dealt with, as is the case with all such prisoners, including Pannir, said MHA.
It detailed the process from Pannir’s conviction and sentencing by the High Court on May 2, 2017, to Feb 9, 2018, when the Court of Appeal dismissed Pannir’s appeal against his conviction and sentence.
“He was accorded full due process under the law and represented by legal counsel throughout the trial and appeal,” said MHA.
MHA said that following the dismissal of his appeal, Pannir was involved in 11 post-appeal applications between 2019 and 2025, seven of which were joint applications with other prisoners awaiting capital punishment. At the time of Pannir’s execution, all of these applications had concluded, the last of which was dismissed on Oct 7.
Six petitions for clemency were also submitted to the President on his behalf, all of which were rejected.
Pannir was first scheduled for execution on May 24, 2019, but had been granted two stays of execution.
The first was due to a last-minute application a day before his hanging that he filed to challenge the rejection of his clemency petition, which was subsequently dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Nov 26, 2021.
He was then scheduled for execution again on Feb 20, 2025, but was granted a second stay of execution to make another application against his capital sentence. This application was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Sept 5, 2025.
“It is therefore false and misleading to suggest that the execution of Pannir on Oct 8, 2025 was carried out without regard for the rule of law. Pannir was accorded full due process under the law, and was scheduled for execution after he had exhausted all legal processes (including the clemency process) in relation to his conviction and sentence,” said MHA.
The second false statement concerned the Government’s decision not to issue a Certificate of Substantive Assistance (CSA) to Pannir.
Drug offenders deemed to have substantively assisted the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) in disrupting drug trafficking activities within or outside Singapore can be sentenced to life imprisonment and caning instead of the death penalty, if they are also found to have acted only as a courier.
At the time, Pannir contended that he had substantively helped the Central Narcotics Bureau by giving information that led to the arrest of a drug trafficker named Zamri Tahir.
Pannir was not issued such a certificate as the Public Prosecutor determined that he had not provided substantive assistance to CNB, said MHA.
It added that Pannir’s legal challenge against the Public Prosecutor’s decision not to issue a CSA was also dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Nov 26, 2021.
“Contrary to what is stated, Pannir did not provide information that led to the arrest of Zamri Tahir. CNB arrested Zamri Tahir based on information that it already had,” said MHA.
The third and fourth falsehoods carried by the MalaysiaNow’s article involved statements that CNB had secretly facilitated an interview between the Malaysian Narcotics Crime Investigation Department (NCID) and Pannir, and that at the interview, a CNB officer wore a Malaysia police uniform and deliberately hid his identity as a CNB officer.
CNB facilitated an interview on Sept 27, 2025, between the NCID and Pannir, following a formal request by the former.
“CNB works closely with our overseas counterparts and will facilitate requests, where possible. The interview process was open and aboveboard – Singapore Prison Service (SPS) had notified Pannir of the interview request. Pannir did not object to being interviewed, nor did he request for his lawyer to be present. Pannir was also not prohibited from consulting his family or his counsel,” said MHA.
“The NCID officers interviewed Pannir in the presence of a CNB officer, who was not wearing a Malaysian police uniform or posing as a Malaysian police officer. Thus, contrary to what is alleged, Pannir’s counsel was not ‘excluded’, and the officers’ identities were not concealed,” added the ministry.
The fifth false statement by MalaysiaNow alleged that that the SPS officers attempted to mislead Pannir’s family into signing a form stating that all of Pannir’s belongings had been handed over to them.
Prior to his execution, Pannir requested to hand over his handwritten letters and poems to his family, said MHA. The authority added that SPS reviewed these items and assessed that the content of a few pages affected the security or good order of the prison. These pages were then withheld by SPS as permitted under law, said MHA.
After Pannir’s execution, SPS officers met with Pannir’s family to hand over Pannir’s belongings and requested for them to sign a form acknowledging that the items indicated on the form were returned to them. Pannir’s family then claimed that some pages of Pannir’s documents were missing.
The officers informed them that the documents were screened in accordance with SPS’s screening guidelines and that pages which did not meet the guidelines were withheld.
Eventually, Pannir’s family took over Pannir’s belongings without signing the form.
“At no point did SPS attempt to mislead Pannir’s family into signing a form stating that all of his belongings were returned to them,” said MHA.
“The Government takes a serious view of the deliberate communication of falsehoods.”
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
