Singapore executes Australian drugs trafficker

Singapore executed Australian heroin trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van early today in a case that triggered an outcry in his country.

Australia’s prime minister said the execution would damage relations between the countries.

“The sentence was carried out this morning at Changi Prison,” Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry said in a statement. It said Nguyen had failed in his appeals to the Court of Appeal, and to President SR Nathan for clemency.

Vietnamese-born Nguyen, 25, was hanged before dawn despite numerous appeals from Australian leaders for his life to be spared.

He was caught with 396 grams (14oz) of heroin at the city-state’s Changi Airport in 2002, en route from Cambodia to Australia.

Dressed in black, a dozen friends and supporters stood outside the maximum-security Changi Prison hours before the hanging at 6am.

Nguyen’s twin brother, Nguyen Khoa, entered the prison compound, but did not witness the execution. As he left, he hugged a prison officer and shook the hand of another.

Nguyen had said he was trafficking heroin to help pay off his twin’s debts.

“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,” Australian Prime Minister John Howard said shortly before Singapore confirmed the hanging.

“The government itself is not going to take punitive measures against the government of Singapore,” Howard said.

Singapore says its tough laws and penalties for drug trafficking are an effective deterrent against a crime that ruins lives, and that foreigners and Singaporeans must be treated alike. It said Nguyen’s appeals for clemency were carefully considered.

Australia scrapped the death penalty in 1973 and hanged its last criminal in 1967, while Singapore has executed more than 100 people for drug-related offences since 1999.

Physical contact between Nguyen and visitors had been barred. But one of his Australian lawyers, Julian McMahon, said Nguyen’s mother, Kim, had been allowed to hold her son’s hand and touch his face during her last visit yesterday.

“That was a great comfort to her,” McMahon said.