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SINGAPORE: Singapore’s top court dismissed a mentally disabled Malaysian man’s last-ditch appeal against the death sentence despite a storm of international criticism.

A challenge to previous decisions in the case of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam and a bid to get proceedings delayed for a psychiatric assessment were both rejected, said Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon at the Court of Appeal. The attempt to get a further assessment amounted to a “blatant and egregious abuse of the court process” aimed at delaying the execution, he said.

Nagaenthran was arrested in 2009 for trafficking a small amount of heroin into the city-state, which has some of the world’s toughest drugs laws, and handed a then-mandatory death sentence the following year. He was originally scheduled to be hanged in November but the plan sparked criticism due to claims he is intellectually disabled and he lodged the 11th-hour challenge at the Court of Appeal.