Aus drug trafficker hanged

2005-12-02 08:08

Singapore - Convicted Australian drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van was hanged on Friday in Singapore after high-level bids to save his life failed, sparking condemnation from Australia's leaders and rights groups.

"Mr Nguyen failed in his appeals to the Court of Appeal and to the president. The sentence was carried out this morning at Changi Prison," the ministry of home affairs said in a short statement.

The case has generated public outrage in Australia, where capital punishment has long been outlawed.

Singapore turned down repeated pleas for clemency, including from Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and some sectors in Australia have called for a retaliatory boycott of Singaporean companies.

"I have told the prime minister of Singapore that I believe it will have an effect on the relationship on a people-to-people, population-to-population basis," Howard told Australian radio on Friday, but he said a boycott of goods would achieve nothing.

His Singaporean counterpart, Lee Hsien Loong, has been unmoved by the furore, making clear this week that the death penalty "is necessary and is part of the criminal justice system".

"The evil inflicted on thousands of people with drug trafficking demands that we must tackle the source by punishing the traffickers rather than trying to pick up the pieces afterwards," he said.

Nguyen, 25, was executed for trying to smuggle 400 grams of heroin from Cambodia via Singapore to Australia in 2002. Possession of more than 15 grams is punishable by death here.

Shackled and hooded

Executions are usually conducted at 06:00, with the prisoner shackled and hooded before a noose is put in place and a hangman pulls a lever to release a trapdoor, snapping the neck.

Hguyen, who had no previous criminal record, said he was smuggling the drugs to Australia to help pay off debts owed by his twin brother Khoa.

Shortly after 07:00 Nguyen's lawyers and Khoa, wearing yellow ribbons, emerged stony-faced from the prison near the airport where Hyugen was caught. They left without making any comment.

Nguyen's mother Kim and others gathered at a nearby chapel with friends and supporters. Family members are not allowed to witness hangings.

Shortly before the execution, which he called "fundamentally and morally wrong", lawyer Julian McMahon said, "the mum is obviously incredibly upset but she is also more prepared now than at any other time she has been."

In Nguyen's home city of Melbourne hundreds of his supporters bowed their heads in silence at a church as a bell tolled 25 times to mark his execution, once for every year of his life.

A silent vigil for Nguyen also drew hundreds of people to a plaza in central Sydney for the moment corresponding with dawn in Singapore.

While Singapore stood firm in the face of repeated calls to spare Vietnamese-born Nguyen's life, it did bow to pleas to let him touch his mother one final time, although they were unable to hug.

- AFP