The rights group said Malaysian courts imposed 15 death sentences in 2025, down from 24 in 2024 and 38 in 2023, following the abolition of the mandatory death penalty.
Amnesty International Malaysia communications officer Divya Shesshsan Balakrishnan said the reforms demonstrated that a change in the justice system was possible, but warned that Malaysia’s laws still allowed courts to impose capital punishment.
“Malaysia has shown a strong indication of moving away from the death penalty. Fewer people have been sentenced to death, and that is significant.
“However, without full abolition, Malaysia still stands with the minority of countries still holding on to an unjust and irreversible punishment,” he told a press conference at the launch of the rights group’s 2025 Death Sentences and Executions Global Report.
Official statistics quoted by Amnesty also showed that appellate courts commuted 42 death sentences in 2025, including 24 involving drug-related offences, while four individuals were acquitted.
As of November 2025, 97 people remained on death row, the country’s lowest recorded figure.
Need for continued monitoring of sentences
Lawyer Ngeow Chow Ying said the moratorium on the mandatory death penalty had allowed judges to consider the wider circumstances surrounding offences, which helped reduce the number of death sentences handed down.
“The ability to look at the external factors of the crime has allowed judges to opt for a 30- to 40-year jail sentence instead of death,” she said.
However, Chow stressed that judicial discretion must still be monitored to avoid inconsistencies in sentencing.
Despite the decline in sentencing, Amnesty said that drug-related offences continued to make up nearly half of all new death sentences imposed in 2025, accounting for seven out of the 15 recorded cases.
Representatives from Keluarga Kasih said drug-related death penalty cases often devastated entire families, leaving long-term social stigma and damaging livelihoods.
Global scale
In Southeast Asia, executions remained concentrated in Singapore and Vietnam, Amnesty said.
The group highlighted Singapore for nearly doubling its executions in 2025, including for drug-related offences, and noted that five Malaysians were among those executed there, including P Pannir Selvam last year.
Chow said Malaysia must take greater responsibility for citizens facing execution abroad by strengthening engagement with Singapore instead of leaving families to pursue legal action on their own, including through international courts.
Amnesty reported that worldwide executions rose by 78% in 2025 to at least 2,707 cases across 17 countries, the highest figure recorded by the organisation since 1981.
However, Amnesty noted that most countries no longer carry out executions, with 113 countries fully abolishing the death penalty and more than two-thirds abolitionist in law or practice.