Singapore Hangs Austrailian Drug Smuggler

[Lethalfind]

Singapore Hangs Australian Drug Smuggler By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 46 minutes ago

 

SINGAPORE - Singapore executed a 25-year-old Australian on Friday for drug trafficking, despite numerous appeals from the Australian government and hours after the condemned man had a "beautiful last visit" with his family.

 

Nguyen Tuong Van was hanged before dawn as a dozen friends and supporters, dressed in black, kept an overnight vigil outside the maximum-security prison. His twin brother, Nguyen Khoa, was dressed in white.

 

Vigils were also held in cities around Australia, with bells and gongs sounding 25 times at the hour of his execution.

 

"The sentence was carried out this morning at Changi Prison," the Home Affairs Ministry said in an e-mailed statement.

 

Nguyen received a mandatory death sentence after he was caught in 2002 at Singapore's airport on his way home to Melbourne carrying about 14 ounces of heroin.

 

Singapore has executed more than 100 people for drug-related offenses since 1999, saying its tough laws and penalties are an effective deterrent against a crime that ruins lives. By contrast, Australia scrapped the death penalty in 1973 and hanged its last criminal in 1967.

 

While Australian leaders lashed out at the death sentence as "barbaric" and pleaded for clemency for Nguyen, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had ruled out a reprieve.

 

"We have stated our position clearly," Lee told reporters in Berlin on Thursday after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "The penalty is death."

 

Nguyen visited with his mother, Kim, twin brother, Nguyen Khoa, a friend and his lawyers Thursday afternoon.

 

Julian McMahon, one of his Australian lawyers, said Nguyen was "completely rehabilitated, completely reformed, completely focused on doing what is good and now they are going to kill him."

 

Another lawyer, Lex Lasry, said the family had a "beautiful last visit."

 

"It was a great visit and quite uplifting," he said, brushing away tears.

 

McMahon said Nguyen's mother had been allowed to hold her son's hand and touch his face in her last visit.

 

"That was a great comfort to her," McMahon said.

 

Lasry has criticized Singapore's mandatory death penalty for some drugs cases and attacked the clemency appeal process as lacking transparency.

 

But Singapore's Home Affairs Ministry said in an e-mail statement that every petition for clemency is carefully considered by the president, "taking into account all relevant factors."

 

"The president has in the past commuted the death penalty," the statement said.

 

According to local media, Singapore has granted clemency to six inmates on death row

[builder]

A recent phone poll on this matter revealed 98% of Aussies said 'hang him'. The media blow-up of this non-event is a smoke-screen for more important news.

 

I'm sure you are all too familiar with that tactic in the press.

[Evilbastard]

Hang the stupid prick. Ooops my bad they already did.

[Lethalfind]

I have to say that if you go to someone elses country and break their laws then really, what do you expect???

[Evilbastard]

You would have to be a fucking mental midget to go to or through a county that has the death penalty for drugs.

 

The all the liberal pricks cry and say how bad the death penalty is. Give me a break.

 

They have very low crim rates, no real drug problems. Hell more countries need to have some of thses bastards. Hell the should have just lynched Sadam and be done with it. Would have saved a shit load of money

[tiredofwhiners]

Didn't that idiot learn anything from the kid that spray painted cars? I'm thinking if you get caned for vandalism, then drug smuggling would be a no no. Wonder what you get for murder? They just slowly put you in a vat of battery acid till you rot to death?

[builder]

One good thing about Singapore; They banned the disgusting habit of chewing gum years ago. Wonder what the penalty for non-compliance with that one is?

[RoyalOrleans]

One good thing about Singapore; They banned the disgusting habit of chewing gum years ago. Wonder what the penalty for non-compliance with that one is?

 

Article IX, Line VII: The punishment should always fit the crime. In the case of chewing gum, an offender must insert a bamboo shoot in their own ass while he is publicly stoned.

[builder]

Article IX, Line VII: The punishment should always fit the crime. In the case of chewing gum, an offender must insert a bamboo shoot in their own ass while he is publicly stoned.

 

I get it. Smoke a reefer, poke a chopstick.

[RoyalOrleans]

I get it. Smoke a reefer, poke a chopstick.

 

Furthermore, an offender incapable of inserting his own bamboo shoot will be ass-raped by the stone hurlers.

[builder]

Furthermore, an offender incapable of inserting his own bamboo shoot will be ass-raped by the stone hurlers.

 

Subsection 12, paragraph 8 was interesting; "...only those who are gracious of spirit and kind of heart may be stoned."

[Evilbastard]

Getting stoned is what got him hung

[RoyalOrleans]

Getting stoned is what got him hung

 

Hahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!! :D

[builder]

Getting stoned is what got him hung

 

Now if, for one minute, I believed that he was a user, and purchasing for his own needs, rather than immense profit, I would have been against the hanging.

 

He was a businessman, more so than a mule. He was not a user.

[Lethalfind]

To me the issue is not whether I aprove of another countries laws. Its not my place to approve or disapprove. It IS however my place to observe them if I go there. If I don't like them then I won't go, its that simple. It pisses me off when people go to another country and act the fool or in this case something more serious and then cry for their mother country to bail them out.