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Singapore hangs Australian drug smuggler
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-02 10:00
Singapore executed a 25-year-old Australian on Friday for drug trafficking,
despite numerous appeals from the Australian government and hours after the
condemned man had a "beautiful last visit" with his family.
Nguyen Tuong Van was hanged before dawn as a dozen friends and supporters,
dressed in black, kept an overnight vigil outside the maximum-security prison.
His twin brother, Nguyen Khoa, was dressed in white.
Vigils were also held in cities around Australia, with bells and gongs
sounding 25 times at the hour of his execution.
"The sentence was carried out this morning at Changi Prison," the Home
Affairs Ministry said in an e-mailed statement.
Nguyen received a mandatory death sentence after he was caught in 2002 at
Singapore's airport on his way home to Melbourne carrying about 14 ounces of
heroin.
Singapore has executed more than 100 people for drug-related offenses since
1999, saying its tough laws and penalties are an effective deterrent against a
crime that ruins lives. By contrast, Australia scrapped the death penalty in
1973 and hanged its last criminal in 1967.
While Australian leaders lashed out at the death sentence as "barbaric" and
pleaded for clemency for Nguyen, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had
ruled out a reprieve.
"We have stated our position clearly," Lee told reporters in Berlin on
Thursday after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "The penalty is
death."
Nguyen visited with his mother, Kim, twin brother, Nguyen Khoa, a friend and
his lawyers Thursday afternoon.
Julian McMahon, one of his Australian lawyers, said Nguyen was "completely
rehabilitated, completely reformed, completely focused on doing what is good and
now they are going to kill him."
Another lawyer, Lex Lasry, said the family had a "beautiful last visit."
"It was a great visit and quite uplifting," he said, brushing away tears.
McMahon said Nguyen's mother had been allowed to hold her son's hand and
touch his face in her last visit.
"That was a great comfort to her," McMahon said.
Lasry has criticized Singapore's mandatory death penalty for some drugs cases
and attacked the clemency appeal process as lacking transparency.
But Singapore's Home Affairs Ministry said in an e-mail statement that every
petition for clemency is carefully considered by the president, "taking into
account all relevant factors."
"The president has in the past commuted the death penalty," the statement
said.
According to local media, Singapore has granted clemency to six inmates on
death row 錕斤拷 all Singaporeans 錕斤拷 since independence in 1965.
Earlier Thursday, Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock called the
planned execution "a most unfortunate, barbaric act that is occurring."
Asked about the comment in Berlin, Lee would only say that "the Australian
press is colorful." Lee emphasized that all factors, including Australian
letters for clemency, had been "taken into account" but said "the law will have
to take its course."
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