Australia will not challenge Singapore on hanging - FM
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-11-29 14:52

Australia has ruled out further legal challenges to the execution of a convicted drug-runner in Singapore later this week but has asked that the man's mother be allowed to hug her son before he is killed.

Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, is scheduled to be hanged at dawn on Friday for trafficking some 400 grams (14 ounces) of heroin into Singapore in 2002 as he flew from Cambodia to Australia.

The Australian government has ruled out further legal challenges to the execution of convicted drug-runner Nguyen Tuong Van, seen here, in Singapore later this week but has asked that the man's mother be allowed to hug her son before he dies, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said. [AFP/file]

The Australian government has argued that the circumstances of the case -- including Nguyen's assistance to Singapore and Australian police, his remorse and his lack of a prior conviction -- constitute grounds for sparing the Melbourne man from the mandatory death sentence.

But despite seeking further legal advice Tuesday on the case, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said it was unlikely Singapore would change its mind.

"We've looked at other issues, the impact of other agreements we might have with Singapore, extradition agreements and so on, but there's really no basis in our view that we can find to take any further legal action," Downer told reporters.

"All we can continue to do -- as a government, as a parliament and as a broader Australian community -- is plead for clemency.

"If the Singaporeans choose not to grant clemency, and that's been their very strong position until now, then we would expect the execution to go ahead on Friday."

Downer said Singapore was considering his request that Nguyen's mother Kim be allowed to hug her son before he dies in Changi Prison, which does not allow physical contact between death row inmates and their families.

"I would have thought it's not an unreasonable thing for a mother to hug her son before the son is executed," he said.

Nguyen's case has attracted huge media interest here. A number of Australians are facing long prison terms, as well as the death sentence, in prisons across Asia for alleged drug offences.

Earlier this year Queensland woman Schapelle Corby, 28, was sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian prison after being convicted of bringing 4.1 kilograms (nine pounds) of marijuana into Bali.

Her sentence was later reduced to 15 years but the case prompted outrage across the country, with the Indonesian embassy in Canberra receiving several suspicious packages, including one containing a white powder which forced the mission to shut down for several days.

The Singapore High Commission in Canberra confirmed that it had also received many e-mails, letters and phone calls on the issue of Nguyen's execution.

"The feelings expressed by these writers and callers have been either strongly for or against the tough stance Singapore has taken on drug trafficking. There is no unanimous view on this issue," it said in a statement.

Ambivalence has also met a call, backed by several federal politicians, for people to observe a minute's silence at the time of Nguyen's execution.

"Perhaps we should instead on Friday pause to remember the pain, grief and despair experienced by all those who have lost a loved one to the vile 'work' of there heroin smugglers and dealers," one person wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald.

"My heart goes out to Nguyen's parents," read another. "But get real, Australia. This man, like all drug dealers, was prepared to trade the lives and future of a thousand of our children for a few miserable dollars."

Amnesty International Australia said Nguyen's case had prompted renewed debate about the death penalty, abolished here in 1985.

"I think we have seen a very strong voice against the death penalty but against this execution in particular," campaigner Tim Goodwin said.