He told AFP he had “enormous respect” for the financial hub, but said its capital punishment was one aspect that was “really negative”.
“It’s the one horrible blotch on its reputation,” the billionaire said. “I don’t think civilised countries should be in the business of killing their own people, or killing anybody.”
Watch the video here.
Branson, a long-time campaigner against the death penalty, urged Singapore President Halimah Yacob to grant 34-year-old Nagaenthran clemency.
“I really just hope that on Wednesday evening, she does not have this young man’s death on her hands,” he said, adding that the death penalty was “inhumane”.
He also asked Singapore to “abolish the death penalty altogether” and “do what most other civilised countries have done”.
On Friday, Branson and actor Stephen Fry had taken to social media to urge the Singapore government to spare Nagaenthran, who is due to be hanged tomorrow for drug trafficking.
In the one-minute 20-second clip on Twitter, Branson and Fry called on Halimah and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to grant Nagaenthran clemency.
The founder of the Virgin Group added that Singapore had always led from the front when it came to the rights of people with disabilities and in championing their inclusion in society.
Fry said the Malaysian did not deserve to die and his impending execution would cast a dark shadow on many of those commitments to the rights of the disabled.
The veteran British comedian noted that Nagaenthran had been living with an intellectual disability, as defined under international human rights law.
Nagaenthran, from Perak, is said to have an IQ of 69 – a level recognised as a disability. He has been on death row in Singapore since 2010 for smuggling 42.7gm of heroin into the city state a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Office has joined the call for the death sentence against Nagaenthran and another Malaysian national, Datchinamurthy Kataiah, to be commuted.
Kataiah was arrested in 2011 and convicted on charges of trafficking diamorphine into the city-state. Last week, his family received notice that his execution was scheduled for Friday.