SINGAPORE: Vigil outside Changi prison at execution of Austrlaian Nguyen Tuong Van for drug trafficking

Record ID: 690081

  • Title: SINGAPORE: Vigil outside Changi prison at execution of Austrlaian Nguyen Tuong Van for drug trafficking
  • Date: 2nd December 2005
  • Summary: CU/NIGHT: WOMAN CRYING
  • Embargoed: 17th December 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Singapore
  • Country: Singapore
  • Reuters ID: LVAC9TKWTBM09FO145J2102W2Y2X
  • Story Text: Singapore executed an Australian man on Friday(December 2) despite repeated pleas by Australia's government to save the convicted drug smuggler from the gallows.
    Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, was hanged at the city-state's Changi prison just after 6.00 am (2200 GMT), a spokeswoman at the Ministry of Home Affairs said. The hanging follows weeks of intense campaigning by his lawyers, his family and civil rights activists to stop the execution.
    Hours before the scheduled execution, local anti-death penalty activists held small scale vigils outside the prison grounds.
    Nguyen's twin brother Khoa and a family lawyer had arrived at the prison early on Friday. They were unable to witness the execution but said they wanted to be as close as possible to Nguyen when he died.
    His mother, Kim Nguyen, was in a Singapore chapel with friends, praying for her son.
    A day before the hanging, the Singapore prison bent its rules which forbid physical contact between a prisoner and visitors, and allowed Nguyen's mother and his twin brother to hold hands with him.
    Local death-penalty activist M. Ravi arrived at the prison right before the execution with the family of a Singaporean man who had been executed for drug trafficking earlier this year. "But civil society all around the world who is watching this must learn from this lesson. We shall fight till this last moment and that's the reason why we've said don't let this boy become an obituary because he is still alive. At this moment he is being tied, his ankles are being manacled and a hood is being placed right down there; a state sanctioned murder is going to take place," said Ravi.
    A minute after the execution, M.Ravi recited prayers in the Hindu, Muslim and Christian religions as activists gathered around to pray for Nguyen.
    A minute after the execution, a large church bell in Nguyen's home city of Melbourne tolled 25 times -- once for every year of his short life.
    The death certificate will be issued by the prison department and officials from the Australian High Commission will identify the body. A casket company will then collect the body and prepare for a burial in Australia, officials said.
    The execution has strained friendly relations between the two countries, which enjoy close business ties and whose armies cooperate. Australia's Attorney-General Philip Ruddock on Thursday dropped diplomacy and called the hanging "barbaric".
    Nobody has been hanged in Australia since 1967 and the death penalty was abolished by states during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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