It is known internationally that there is death penalty in Singapore for drug trafficking, at least for now, if not previously. And there has been a debate everywhere. Inevitably, some Australians will start boycotting Singapore, be it our goods & services, our people, etc. Already, I've seen some bloggers swearing at Singapore. And reports saying drug-traffickers should avoid Asian countries as they'll have to face serious consequences if caught. Does that indicate it is not a serious offence to smuggle drugs around the world? They are forgivable for an act which they literally know it meant to harm people? Perhaps they did it out of their folly moment & we should pardon them, at least for once. It might be so for individuals. But as a nation, it's govern by laws. Anyone who breaks the law has to accept the punishment, including citizens of the nation itself. Had the punishment been lightened, who will abide the law in future; & where is the equality for those been executed?I'd like to hear your say on this. It's okay for any awful ones.~~~~~~~Drug gamble ends with 6am hanging
3 December 2005, The Straits Times English(c) 2005 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
Australian Nguyen Tuong Van's body will be flown home to Melbourne this evening
NGUYEN Tuong Van first made it into the news on Dec 16, 2002.
A four-paragraph item in The Straits Times headlined 'Aussie caught with drugs', reported that the Australian national had been charged with drug trafficking after being caught four days earlier while in transit at Changi Airport.
That was the obscure start to this story. Three years on, the ending was anything but.
In the pre-dawn dark yesterday, some 50 newshounds from 35 TV channels and newspapers worldwide milled around outside Changi Prison, ready to report Nguyen's death to the world.
At 6am, there was a sudden stillness in the air. That was the hour when the 25-year-old was hanged.
His crime: trafficking in 396.2g of pure heroin - enough for 26,000 doses.
His twin brother, Khoa Dang, showed up outside the prison 45 minutes earlier, with lawyer Julian McMahon and eight friends in four taxis. After the media mobbed him, the entourage was let inside to wait in a room.
His mother, Madam Nguyen Kim, spent the morning at a chapel. Mother and son bade their final farewell the day before, when rules were relaxed, allowing her to hold his hands through a grille. She also touched his face and hair, according to Mr McMahon.
Such was the controversy over the case that the question of whether they could touch each other became a matter of national attention, meriting the intervention of the Australian and Singapore leaders.
Singapore - which, like other countries with capital punishment, does not allow such contact due to the trauma it could induce - made a concession for holding hands. It did so after taking into account a personal appeal by Australian PM John Howard to PM Lee Hsien Loong.
It seems it was not good enough. Mr Howard yesterday described the decision to allow just hand-holding as 'clinical'.
In Canberra, church bells tolled at 9am. Politicians and supporters of the hanged man lit candles and placed flowers outside the Singapore High Commission. One banner read: 'Oh Singapore, how could you?'
In Melbourne, Nguyen's hometown, there was a vigil at St Ignatius Church.
Back in Singapore, just after 10am, a hearse left the prison gates with Nguyen's body. Covered in a white shroud with a picture of the Virgin Mary on it, the body was later placed in a coffin for a service at the Good Shepherd Convent's Marymount Chapel.
His body will be flown home this evening.
That will likely bring an end to the frenzy of the last few days, as the Australian media camped here reported back to a home audience which was divided between those who supported the death penalty and those who did not.
But it was not just the media's show. The past few weeks melded into a supercharged drama of emotion, ethics and politics - of one country's decision to punish an offender for a crime committed on its sovereign soil, and another's desire to protect its citizen from what it deems as vengeful laws.
Mr Howard made five personal appeals to Mr Lee for clemency. Singapore stood its ground, defending its laws, which impose a mandatory death penalty on drug traffickers, be they Singaporeans or foreigners.
Some say the tenor of bilateral ties has been altered.
University of Western Australia academic Kenneth Morgan expects 'collateral damage'. He fears there will be Australians who will choose Qantas over Singapore Airlines, and those who will cut their Optus phone lines.
But official ties are likely to be sturdier, said observers.
'Singapore and Australia need each other,' said Prof Morgan. The two countries enjoy strong economic, military and security ties.
While Mr Howard said yesterday he would not encourage boycotts, he did not rule out the Nguyen case having an effect on people-to-people relations.
Hours before the hanging, a small group of activists lit candles near the prison.
Mr Jacob George, of the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Committee, said that while 'most Singaporeans want the death penalty', a 'small minority is starting to speak out'.
But some, like marketing executive Lee Su Wei, 26, believe capital punishment is the key reason Singapore is relatively drug-free: 'This is the maximum sentence. It's the highest deterence you can mete out.'
Mr Howard hopes it will have that effect. As he told the media, the hanging was a 'message to the young of Australia' about the danger of peddling drugs.
Nguyen paid the price - with his life.
A WAKE-UP CALL TO THE YOUNG
'I hope the strongest message that comes out of this is a message to the young of Australia - don't have anything to do with drugs, don't use them, don't touch them, don't carry them, don't traffick in them. Don't imagine for a moment that you can risk carrying drugs anywhere in Asia without suffering the most severe consequences.'
-- AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD, on the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van.
DEATH PENALTY IS A COUNTRY'S RIGHT
'Both our countries have got the death penalty, Other countries may not consider it appropriate but these are laws within our own countries. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but this is the right of every individual country. If anyone breaks the law, they will have to face the consequences.'
-- MALAYSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SYED HAMID ALBAR, rejecting complaints that Singapore's execution of Nguyen was barbaric.
A THIRD-WORLD ACT WHICH HURTS US ALL
'For a first-world country to be imposing a third-world penalty by executing this young man, it diminishes the lives of all of us. The Singapore Government must understand that killing this young Australian will not kill the fight against the mandatory death penalty.'
-- MR ROB HULLS, Attorney-General of Australia's Victoria State where the Nguyens live.
