SPECIAL REPORT | When death penalty cases make media headlines, the focus is usually on the accused, the circumstances of the crime or the high-profile lawyer involved.

Family members of death row inmates are largely the unseen victims who have to cope with a huge emotional and financial burden. This segment of the death penalty series focuses on the family members of a death row inmate Hoo Yew Wah, 33.

Yew Wah was given the mandatory death sentence in 2005 for possession of 188.35g of methamphetamine. Because of the large quantity in his possession, it was presumed that he was trafficking and he was charged under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.

Yew Wah has been on death row in the Bentong Prison since he was sentenced to death in 2011. He has been strictly prohibited from interacting with other inmates for the past seven years. His appeals were dismissed twice while his request for clemency from Sultan of Johor has gone unanswered since 2014.

Throughout the years, he has missed family events, including funerals, and his life continues to hang in the balance.

Language problems, police brutality, forced confession

Yew Wah had just turned 20 when he and his girlfriend were arrested by police in Johor after they found him in possession of drugs. Having quit school at 11, he only spoke Cantonese and Mandarin then.

On the day of his arrest, he had no legal representation. He was provided a translator by the police to record his statement. However, he refused to sign it because he could not understand the translated statement.

He has alleged that the Johor police broke his finger and threatened to beat his girlfriend when they forced him to sign a confession. Although he raised these issues during trial, his conviction was upheld and he was sentenced to death in May 2011.

At the age of 26, after six years of imprisonment, Yew Wah (photo) was moved to death row and kept under strict surveillance. Each death row inmate is entitled to two appeals but by that time, his family had exhausted their savings and gone into debt from funding his legal defence...