Singapore executes Australian trafficker

SINGAPORE — Singapore executed an Australian man today for drug trafficking, after he had a "beautiful last visit" with his family. Australia's leader protested the sentence, saying it would damage ties.

Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, was hanged before dawn as a dozen friends and supporters, dressed in black, kept an overnight vigil outside the prison. His twin brother, Nguyen Khoa, wore white.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Nguyen's execution would damage relations between the two countries.

"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," Howard told Melbourne radio station 3AW shortly before Singapore confirmed it carried out the execution.

But Howard added that Australia would not take diplomatic action against the city-state.

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

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. 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 said 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.

But Howard slammed Singapore's refusal to allow Nguyen's mother to give him a final hug this week.

"The clinical response of the Singaporean authorities to the final requests of the man's mother to embrace her son — I was particularly disappointed with that response; very disappointed," Howard said.