CHINA: MOVE TO SEEK CLEMENCY FOR MALAYSIAN HELD IN DEATH ROW

clemency is being sought for Ong Kim Fatt, a Malaysian who is facing a firing squad in China for drug smuggling. MCA Public Service and Complaints Bureau head Datuk Michael Chong said he will meet Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Lee Chee Leong to discuss ways to forward an appeal. “We would like to seek clemency to commute his sentence from death to life imprisonment,” he said. Ong, 44, was arrested at Gao Qi International Airport in Xiamen on Sept 19, 2007, after Chinese customs officers found 13 packets of heroin weighing 1.48kg with him. Ong's brothers said he has “mental problems.”