Malaysia: State of death penalty

On 10 October 2026, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet) asks Malaysia to speed up the abolition of the death penalty.

Malaysia has made progress towards abolition. The last execution was in 2017, and there has been a moratorium on executions since 2018. The mandatory death penalty was abolished in July 2023.

This means Malaysia is on the verge of becoming “abolitionist in practice” (or de facto abolitionist). Such countries keep the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for at least 10 years. They also have an established policy or practice against executing people.

One major dilemma is that people remain on death row. The number is bound to increase, and there is no legal solution today. The temporary law that allowed the Federal Court to review and revise death sentences may have lapsed.

The Malaysian government is still studying abolition. We hope to see total abolition soon.

Executions since 1957

Malaysia has carried out about 469 executions since 1957.

There is no data on executions by the British colonial government before independence. There were many, as the colonial power tried to suppress the independence movement and a very strong labour movement.

SA Ganapathy was a prominent labour leader and anti-colonial activist. He led the Pan-Malayan Federation of Trade Unions (PMFTU), a multiracial federation of 300,000 to 400,000 members that then represented about 60% of all workers. British authorities hanged him on 4 May 1949.

Veerasenan, Ganapathy’s successor as PMFTU leader, was shot dead by the British in Negeri Sembilan [on 3 May 1949]. It was an extrajudicial killing with no fair trial.

When we talk about the death penalty, we should not confine ourselves to those who received a fair trial, were convicted, sentenced to death and hanged. We should also look at extrajudicial killings by the state and its officers.

New death penalty laws

Drug trafficking is one example. The death penalty was introduced through the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 1975, which prescribed death or life imprisonment.

Through the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 1983, it became a mandatory death penalty offence. The alternative sentence of imprisonment was deleted.

Over 65-70% of inmates previously on death row were convicted of drug offences under section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952. Of the 469 recorded executions since 1957, nearly half (about 229) were for drug trafficking.

The mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking ended on 15 March 2018, when the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 2017 came into force. The sentence became “death or imprisonment for life and shall, if he is not sentenced to death, be punished with whipping of not less than fifteen strokes.” The 2023 act only reduced whipping to 12 strokes.

So the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking ended before the 2023 act abolished it for all other offences.

Abolition that stopped halfway

In 2018, the cabinet decided to abolish the death penalty for 33 offences under eight laws, including section 302 of the Penal Code (murder). Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keong said the decision, which was reached collectively, also covered the Firearms (Heavier Penalties) Act 1971, Firearms Act 1960, Kidnapping Act 1961 and Armed Forces Act 1972. The list also included the Water Services Industries Act 2006, Strategic Trade Act 2010 and Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.

However, the Pakatan Harapan government failed to take the necessary step of tabling a bill in Parliament. It was ousted in February 2020 during the political crisis often called the ‘Sheraton Move’.

On 6 October 2022, the Barisan Nasional government under Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob tabled seven bills to abolish the mandatory death penalty. It was the first concrete action by the Malaysian government. Parliament was dissolved for a general election before the bills could be debated and passed.

This was important. It showed that almost all Malaysian political parties, including those in the opposition, wanted the mandatory death penalty abolished.

Only the mandatory penalty went

On 4 July 2023, the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 came into force. Judges can now choose between the death penalty and a jail term of 30 to 40 years with not less than 12 strokes of whipping for capital offences.

Sadly, what was abolished was only the mandatory death penalty. The death penalty remains for about 30 offences.

The time has come for Malaysia to consider total abolition. As a first step, the death penalty should be removed for all crimes that did not directly cause death or grievous bodily harm.

It is good to note that the government is still on the right track towards total abolition. “The study on the complete abolition of the death penalty is expected to commence in January next year and will run for a period of four months,” said the deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department responsible for law and Institutional Reform, M Kulasegaran.

More than nine months have passed since the study began. We hope it ends with abolition.

Who can still seek review?

The Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of the Federal Court) Act 2023 came into force on 12 September 2023. The problem was that it was a temporary act designed for those then on death row who had already exhausted all appeals. It did not cover people who would end up on death row afterwards.

The minister in the Prime Minister’s Department responsible for law and institutional reform, Azalina Othman Said, said 863 inmates facing the death penalty had their sentences commuted or reduced. However, 49 remained on death row as of October 2024.

Kulasegaran said Prisons Department data showed 97 people had been sentenced to death as at 11 November 2025. They comprised 38 awaiting appeal in the Court of Appeal, nine awaiting appeal in the Federal Court and 50 who had exhausted all appeals and may submit a pardon application.

The problem is that the Federal Court in exercising its powers under the 2023 act, did not commute every death sentence to imprisonment and whipping. In some cases, it kept the death sentence.

A total of 50 death sentences were upheld following the Federal Court’s review process under the Death Penalty and Life Imprisonment Sentence Review (Federal Court’s Temporary Jurisdiction) Act 2023. “As of Dec 31, the Federal Court had approved 860 applications for the review of death penalty sentences. Through this review process, 47 applications had their death penalty sentences upheld, while three applications were withdrawn by the applicants, bringing the total number of death penalty sentences that remained unchanged to 50,” Azalina said in a written parliamentary reply.

After the abolition of the mandatory death penalty, courts still sentence people to death. In April 2026, the High Court in Taiping reportedly sentenced a former military man and his friend to death for murdering a retired officer five years ago.

This means people remain on death row, and the number will keep growing.

Those who have now exhausted all appeals may no longer be able to apply to the Federal Court under the Death Penalty and Life Imprisonment Sentence Review (Federal Court’s Temporary Jurisdiction) Act 2023. That required that “any person who is sentenced to death may make an application in writing to the Federal Court within ninety days from the date of coming into operation of this Act.”

The act did allow an extension: “(3) The Federal Court may extend the time specified under subsection (1) if it considers that there is a good reason for doing so.”

Will the Federal Court extend the time limits and still review death sentences?

We need a new law. Alternatively, the 2023 act should be amended to give the court the power to keep reviewing death sentences.

Pardon as another route

The King and state rulers can also commute death sentences to imprisonment [through the pardons power]. Sadly, we have not heard of many such pardons.

One known case is that of Mokhtar Hashim, a former culture, youth and sports minister. He was convicted on 14 April 1982 of murdering Mohamad Taha Talib, then Speaker of the Negri Sembilan legislative assembly. The High Court sentenced him to death on 6 March 1983. The following year, a royal pardon commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Seven years later, in 1991, a second royal pardon secured his freedom.

A recent media report said 25 prisoners whose death sentences were commuted by pardons boards have urged the Federal Court to revisit an earlier ruling. They want to apply for sentence reviews under the 2023 sentencing reform law.

Transparency demands that the government disclose how many people sentenced to death have had their sentences commuted by the pardons board. This would make the public, including those on death row, aware of the possibility and able to use it.

Death row numbers will grow

We know there were 97 people on death row as of 11 November 2025. We do not know how many there are today, especially those who have exhausted all appeals.

The 2023 act may no longer be usable for those still on death row. The government should consider reviving this law, along with the Federal Court’s powers, so that those who have exhausted all appeals can still easily ask the court to commute their sentence. That right to apply for a review of the death sentence could by law be permissible once every three or five years.

Other than this law, rule 137 of the Rules of the Federal Court 1995 gives the court inherent power to review its own decisions. However, the court uses this power very sparingly. It is confined to preventing injustice or correcting procedural abuse, and those conditions are very difficult to meet.

Anwar Ibrahim tried and failed in 2016:

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will have to serve out his remaining 16 months of his five-year jail sentence after the Federal Court dismissed his review application to set aside his sodomy conviction today…

In a unanimous decision, a five-man panel chaired by Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin ruled that there was no merit in the application.

“The court finds that there is no merit in this application and that this not a fit and proper case to be heard in this court,” the judge said. 

So rule 137 may not be a viable option. We need a law that gives the Federal Court permanent, not temporary, jurisdiction to review death sentences. The right to reapply for subsequent reviews should be available every three to five years.

Alternatively, Parliament could pass a law commuting all death sentences to imprisonment.

Malaysia’s UN commitments

Malaysia clearly does not want to hang people any more. The growing number on death row is therefore a predicament.

Malaysia voted for the UN General Assembly resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions, with a view to full abolition, in 2018, 2020, 2022 and December 2024.

The 10th resolution (A/RES/79/179) was adopted on 17 December 2024 with a record 130 votes in favour, 32 against and 22 abstentions. It was the first time more than two-thirds of member states backed it.

The 11th biennial UN General Assembly resolution calling for a universal moratorium is scheduled for a vote in December 2026, during the 81st session. We hope Malaysia will again vote in favour.

Our calls

Madpet calls on Malaysia to abolish the death penalty and to keep the moratorium on executions pending abolition.

To deal with the growing number on death row, Madpet calls on Malaysia to either:

• Enact a federal law commuting all death sentences to imprisonment, or
• Amend the Death Penalty and Life Imprisonment Sentence Review (Federal Court’s Temporary Jurisdiction) Act 2023 so the Federal Court can keep reviewing death sentences.

Madpet also calls for the alternative sentence to death to be amended. It now reads “imprisonment for a term of not less than thirty years but not exceeding forty years”. This denies judges the discretion to impose a lesser sentence based on the facts of the case.

We urge Malaysia to trust judges and restore that discretion by amending it to “which may extend to X years”.

Madpet also reiterates its call for whipping to be abolished, as the Malaysian human rights commission Suhakam and many others have urged. Whipping has already caused one death in Malaysia.

Madpet urges Malaysia to vote in favour of the UN General Assembly resolution on a moratorium on executions, now scheduled for December 2026.

Madpet also urges Malaysia to do more to prevent people from Malaysia being executed in other jurisdictions. As of October 2024, 74 Malaysians had been sentenced to death abroad for drug trafficking offences, Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said. He said the sentences were handed down in Brunei, China, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 

Charles Hector issued this statement on behalf of Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet).

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