Singapore ex-cop set to hang for murder after losing appeal

Singapore: A former Singapore policeman is set to face the gallows for the double murder of a businessman and his son after his appeal was thrown out by the city-state's highest court on Friday.

Iskandar Rahmat, 37, was in 2015 convicted for the murders of car workshop owner Tan Boon Sin, 67, and his son, Tan Chee Heong, 42, at their home in July 2013 during a botched robbery.

The pair bore multiple stab wounds, and the younger Tan had his body dragged about a kilometre (0.6 miles) after he got caught under his father's car that Iskandar had used as a getaway vehicle.

Iskandar, who was in severe financial trouble, was arrested days later in neighbouring Malaysia.

During the appeal, Iskandar's lawyers said a new psychiatric assessment last year showed he was suffering from mental illness during the murders, an argument that was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

In 2015, High Court Judge Tay Yong Kwang said Iskandar had attacked the victims "cruelly and relentlessly with the clear intention of causing death".

The elder Tan was found with 27 knife wounds while his son had 20, including an open fracture to his skull.

Iskandar was once portrayed as a model officer on the Singapore Police Force website, but he had fallen into severe debt and was facing possible expulsion from the department.

He has one final option of pleading for clemency from the president and if that fails, he will face death by hanging, a punishment carried over from British colonial rule.

Singapore executed four people in 2015, one for murder and three for drug offences, according to prison statistics.

Rights groups have called on Singapore to abolish capital punishment but the government argues that it is a deterrent to crime.