Clemency for Nguyen Tuong Van

[Lemongrass]

Nguyen Tuong Van, an Australian of Vietnamese descent was caught in Singapore in 2002 for drug smuggling while was in transit on a flight from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Australia. The reason being his twin brother owed loan sharks a large sum of money so he had to smuggle drug for them to pay his brother's debt off.

He has been sentenced to death by hanging and is due to be executed in 6 weeks. For those who have compassion and sympathy, please write to the respected Singaporean figures to ask for his clemency. Please follow the URL below to Amnesty International Australia.

Please also spread the message and encourage your family, friends, work buddies and the community to ask for their support.

Thank you very much.



http://www.amnesty.org.au/Act_now/action_centre/singapore_urge_authorities_to_stop_the_execution_of_van_tuong_nguyen

[Saigoneseguy]

Sáng mai Nguyễn Tường Vân bị tử hình

Mẹ của Nguyễn Tường Vân (phải) khi tới thăm con.
Công dân Australia gốc Việt Nguyễn Tường Vân đã sẵn sàng để lên giá treo cổ, sau khi Thủ tướng Singapore Lý Hiển Long tuyên bố sẽ không thay đổi quyết định đối với nhân vật bị kết án vì buôn ma túy này.

Sau chuyến thăm Tường Vân kéo dài một giờ đồng hồ, luật sư của anh ta – Lex Lasry –cho biết thân chủ của ông tỏ ra “kiên quyết và bình thản”, và vẫn có thể cười cho dù biết rằng mình sẽ lên giá treo cổ vào lúc 6h sáng mai (tức 5h, theo giờ HN).

“Anh ấy dĩ nhiên là lo lắng, nhưng anh ấy đã sẵn sàng”, Lasry phát biểu. “Anh ấy dự định có một cái chết yên lành. Anh ấy có đức tin, điều này tiếp sức cho anh ấy”.
Nguyễn Tường Vân.

Sau nhiều tháng Australia tiến hành những nỗ lực pháp lý và cả sức ép ngoại giao lên Singapore, Thủ tướng Lý Hiển Long, hiện ở châu Âu, hôm qua vẫn giữ nguyên quyết định không cho Tường Vân cơ hội được khoan hồng.

Ông bình luận rằng án tử hình là “cần thiết và là một bộ phận không thể thiếu của hệ thống luật hình sự. Nạn buôn ma túy đã gây hại cho hàng nghìn con người và chúng tôi phải diệt trừ tận gốc bằng cách trừng phạt những kẻ buôn bán chúng thay vì đi giải quyết hậu quả sau đó. Đạo luật này đã được người dân Singapore chấp thuận và giúp chúng tôi giảm vấn nạn ma túy”.

Nguyễn Tường Vân bị bắt trong khi đang chờ quá cảnh ở sân bay Changi với gần 400 g heroin mang theo người. Theo luật Singapore, chỉ cần 15 g heroin là đã đủ để đưa tới án tử hình. Mẹ của Tường Vân đến nhà tù cùng người anh sinh đôi của anh ta là Khoa chiều qua.

“Bà ấy rất đau khổ, nhưng xét ở khía cạnh nào đó, bà ấy bắt đầu nhận ra đó là điều mà bà ấy phải đối mặt”, luật sư Lasry nhận xét.

Mong muốn của bà Kim là được ôm con lần cuối cũng không được chấp nhận. Theo quy định thông thường, tử tù không được tiếp xúc trực tiếp với người thân. Tuy nhiên, nhà tù Singapore cho phép Tường Vân được cầm tay mẹ và anh trai để nói lời vĩnh biệt.

Dự kiến, thi thể của Vân sẽ được đưa về Australia cuối tuần này.




Nguyen Tuong Van was found with 400g of heroin
The family of an Australian man facing the death penalty in Singapore has visited him for probably the last time.
Nguyen Truong Van, 25, is scheduled to be hanged before dawn on Friday, after being found with 400g (14 ounces) of heroin at Singapore's airport in 2002.

His mother and twin brother visited him at Changi prison on Thursday.

Singapore has ignored calls for clemency for Nguyen, and on Thursday, Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock branded his hanging "barbaric".

Mr Ruddock said the case had mitigating circumstances, because Nguyen had said he smuggled the drugs to earn enough money to pay off legal bills of A$30,000 (£13,000). incurred by his twin brother, a one-time heroin addict.

Nguyen's mother appeared at the jail looking distressed.

During her son's captivity, she has been unable to have any physical contact with him, only being allowed to see and speak to him through a glass partition.

But the Singapore government said on Thursday it would allow the two to hold hands during their final meeting, following a personal appeal by Australia's Prime Minister John Howard.

One of Nguyen's lawyers, Lex Lasry, has said his client was ready to die.

"We've just had a beautiful last visit. It was a great visit and quite uplifting," he said on Thursday.

Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam but lived in Melbourne, was arrested while in transit at Singapore's Changi airport.

Singapore has some of the strictest drug trafficking laws in the world, and anyone found with 15g of heroin faces a mandatory death penalty.

According to Amnesty International, about 420 people have been hanged in Singapore since 1991, mostly for drugs offences.

[Trân]

Sáng mai Nguyễn Tường Vân bị tử hình

Mẹ của Nguyễn Tường Vân (phải) khi tới thăm con.
Công dân Australia gốc Việt Nguyễn Tường Vân đã sẵn sàng để lên giá treo cổ, sau khi Thủ tướng Singapore Lý Hiển Long tuyên bố sẽ không thay đổi quyết định đối với nhân vật bị kết án vì buôn ma túy này.

Sau chuyến thăm Tường Vân kéo dài một giờ đồng hồ, luật sư của anh ta – Lex Lasry –cho biết thân chủ của ông tỏ ra “kiên quyết và bình thản”, và vẫn có thể cười cho dù biết rằng mình sẽ lên giá treo cổ vào lúc 6h sáng mai (tức 5h, theo giờ HN).

“Anh ấy dĩ nhiên là lo lắng, nhưng anh ấy đã sẵn sàng”, Lasry phát biểu. “Anh ấy dự định có một cái chết yên lành. Anh ấy có đức tin, điều này tiếp sức cho anh ấy”.
Nguyễn Tường Vân.

Sau nhiều tháng Australia tiến hành những nỗ lực pháp lý và cả sức ép ngoại giao lên Singapore, Thủ tướng Lý Hiển Long, hiện ở châu Âu, hôm qua vẫn giữ nguyên quyết định không cho Tường Vân cơ hội được khoan hồng.

Ông bình luận rằng án tử hình là “cần thiết và là một bộ phận không thể thiếu của hệ thống luật hình sự. Nạn buôn ma túy đã gây hại cho hàng nghìn con người và chúng tôi phải diệt trừ tận gốc bằng cách trừng phạt những kẻ buôn bán chúng thay vì đi giải quyết hậu quả sau đó. Đạo luật này đã được người dân Singapore chấp thuận và giúp chúng tôi giảm vấn nạn ma túy”.

Nguyễn Tường Vân bị bắt trong khi đang chờ quá cảnh ở sân bay Changi với gần 400 g heroin mang theo người. Theo luật Singapore, chỉ cần 15 g heroin là đã đủ để đưa tới án tử hình. Mẹ của Tường Vân đến nhà tù cùng người anh sinh đôi của anh ta là Khoa chiều qua.

“Bà ấy rất đau khổ, nhưng xét ở khía cạnh nào đó, bà ấy bắt đầu nhận ra đó là điều mà bà ấy phải đối mặt”, luật sư Lasry nhận xét.

Mong muốn của bà Kim là được ôm con lần cuối cũng không được chấp nhận. Theo quy định thông thường, tử tù không được tiếp xúc trực tiếp với người thân. Tuy nhiên, nhà tù Singapore cho phép Tường Vân được cầm tay mẹ và anh trai để nói lời vĩnh biệt.

Dự kiến, thi thể của Vân sẽ được đưa về Australia cuối tuần này.




Nguyen Tuong Van was found with 400g of heroin
The family of an Australian man facing the death penalty in Singapore has visited him for probably the last time.
Nguyen Truong Van, 25, is scheduled to be hanged before dawn on Friday, after being found with 400g (14 ounces) of heroin at Singapore's airport in 2002.

His mother and twin brother visited him at Changi prison on Thursday.

Singapore has ignored calls for clemency for Nguyen, and on Thursday, Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock branded his hanging "barbaric".

Mr Ruddock said the case had mitigating circumstances, because Nguyen had said he smuggled the drugs to earn enough money to pay off legal bills of A$30,000 (£13,000). incurred by his twin brother, a one-time heroin addict.

Nguyen's mother appeared at the jail looking distressed.

During her son's captivity, she has been unable to have any physical contact with him, only being allowed to see and speak to him through a glass partition.

But the Singapore government said on Thursday it would allow the two to hold hands during their final meeting, following a personal appeal by Australia's Prime Minister John Howard.

One of Nguyen's lawyers, Lex Lasry, has said his client was ready to die.

"We've just had a beautiful last visit. It was a great visit and quite uplifting," he said on Thursday.

Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam but lived in Melbourne, was arrested while in transit at Singapore's Changi airport.

Singapore has some of the strictest drug trafficking laws in the world, and anyone found with 15g of heroin faces a mandatory death penalty.

According to Amnesty International, about 420 people have been hanged in Singapore since 1991, mostly for drugs offences.


I'm against death penalty.

[Baria]

I tried the link Lemongrass provided many times in so many days without success! What's going on?

[Pho-sure]

He will be executed at 6am Singaporean time (dawn), which is 10 minutes from now.

[Saigoneseguy]

The execution should have been finished now.

God bless his soul, and may he bless ours.

[Pho-sure]

When they were two little boys


Email Print Normal font Large font December 2, 2005
Page 1 of 3 | Single page
Twin sons of a refugee, one had a troubled path, the other led a blameless life until committing a terrible crime to aid his brother.


Brothers in arms … the Nguyen twins, Van and Khoa, inseparable and indistinguishable. Van's mother decided he should be eldest as he weighed more.

teenager had tramped around the shops and small businesses near his home, pestering the owners for an after-school job. It took a lot of asking and a lot of walking, but eventually he found something: sweeping crumbs and cleaning ovens at a bakery.

It wasn't much but it was good enough, and when he rode home at the end of his first week, in 1996, the 15-year-old had already spent a large chunk of his first pay packet. Strapped to the back of his bicycle was a pair of identical boxes.

When he got home he opened the first and showed his mum the school shoes he had bought. He handed the second box, with its matching pair of shoes, to his twin brother, Khoa. They were delighted but unsurprised. That was just Van, always looking out for his "little" brother.

Kim Nguyen's boys were born on August 17, 1980, in an overcrowded refugee camp at Songkhla, in Thailand. It was a caesarean delivery and because Kim did not know who had been born first she picked Van to be the eldest because he weighed the most.

And so fell to him - as Vietnamese culture requires - the task of upholding his family name and looking after his brother. For the rest of Nguyen Tuong Van's short life, that would be his responsibility. And his burden.

At dawn today, one last act of brotherly love gone too far will take Van to the gallows of Singapore's Changi prison.

Like so many Vietnamese, Kim Nguyen's life was turned around when Saigon fell to communist forces in 1975. The new rulers came looking for her father and uncle because they had worked for the enemy. Both were jailed. Kim, herself, became pregnant during a brief marriage and in 1980 she fled with her unborn boys and hundreds of others in a makeshift flotilla. They washed up in Thailand and settled in a refugee camp.

After eight months and the birth of her boys, Kim was accepted as a refugee and joined her sister in Perth. Three years later an older brother flew her and the boys to Melbourne.

They squeezed into a Housing Commission high-rise flat in the inner suburb of Richmond, where there was a strong Vietnamese community. The family settled in, with the boys attending the nearby Catholic primary, but Kim was hoping for house they could call their own. With money coming in from her two jobs and help from her brother's family, they moved to a house in the outer suburbs. Things were looking up for the Nguyens, and in 1989 Kim remarried.

It wasn't to last. The marriage ended after Kim found her husband was abusing her boys, then 10. "My husband always struck my children and hurt them, but they never told me," she said. "Then one day I came home from work and I saw him hit Van and told him, 'Don't do that to my son. I don't want him hurt.' After that he became more violent. He was hitting the boys when I wasn't home."

It was the catalyst for divorce, a two further moves, the last to a plain brick house in the Melbourne suburb of Chadstone, their own piece of typical suburbia with backyard.

But there was no relief for Van. He was obliged to become the man of the house.

By the early 1990s, he and his brother were at Glen Waverley Secondary College. A teacher, who did not want to be named, remembers them as being almost inseparable. But that was because Van seemed determined to keep the wayward Khoa out of trouble.

One friend said Van had a confidence beyond his years. "He probably grew up before his time," she said. "Maybe he had more responsibility at that age than I did. It just showed in stuff, like how he looked after you."

He drove friends crazy at karaoke nights, crooning corny love songs. His favorite was Masterpiece by Atlantic Starr, a popular wedding reception number. By the end of its opening lines he was being howled down.

As the first in his group to get a driver's licence, Van took on added responsibility: designated driver for his friends. It meant pick-ups and late-night lifts.

Kelly Ng, who with Bronwyn Lew has led the public fight to save Van's life, said: "The side that I saw at his home was how he helped Kim out. It just seems accepted that most teenagers don't profess their love for their parents as openly as Van did."

Van would often arrive at school looking tired, she said, either because he had been working late at McDonald's or "he said he'd been up all night speaking to Khoa".

The twins were identical and totally different.

Khoa, by then expelled from school and spiralling into heroin addiction, had left home at 17.

"There were a lot of things happening [for Van] in year 12 … trying to help Kim out, looking after Khoa, and because she was a single mum he felt he had to play the father role as well," says Ng. "He came from a small family and didn't have a lot of friends when he was younger, so that's why he was always looking out for the younger ones."

At the end of year 12, Van compered the valedictory dinner. But in the following few years he began to stumble. He lost contact with many of his friends, his tertiary studies failed and had, like his brother, large debts.

His lawyer, Lex Lasry, QC, recalled his first impression of Van. "The person we first met was a 22-year-old, slightly smart-arsey young Australian … He'd been around … was trying to do the right thing but occasionally did the wrong thing and thought he could talk his way out."

But Van had stayed clear of the law and had no Australian criminal record. Still, he often found himself in court to support his brother. Khoa was implicated last year in a vicious attack on a group of young men, one of whom he seriously wounded. He was given a three-year suspended prison sentence.

Khoa's solicitor, Brett Ryan, remembered Van years ago as a "pleasant, nice young man", but after his brother's arrest he underwent an "enormous personal change".

Late in 2002, Van began preparing for his first, and last, overseas trip since leaving Thailand as a baby. He suddenly told his mother he needed a "holiday", but in reality was desperate to make some cash. As it turns out, a Chinese man in Melbourne named Tan had offered a solution.

Van would later tell Singapore police that on Tan's instructions he had met a Vietnamese man in Sydney called Sun who asked him to bring a "package" from Cambodia to Australia via Singapore. He suspected he was bringing in drugs.

Van's mother was also suspicious. Van had become unusually quiet, as if he was under a lot of stress. But he told her: "Mum, I'm older. I'm just going on a holiday for a week and then I'll come back home."

Ten days later, as she stood in her kitchen after returning from work, federal police raided her home. Van had been arrested at Changi Airport. He had arrived on a flight from Cambodia, fallen asleep in transit and then rushed to catch a connecting Qantas flight home. It is believed his mobile phone set off an alarm as he walked through a metal detector. In their subsequent search, security officers found heroin strapped to his back and in his backpack.

The seriousness of his predicament struck immediately. He cried and tried to hit his head into a wall.

In his 14-page statement to police, Van said he agreed to the drug run to repay Khoa's debts of about $30,000. "I did not intend to let my twin brother know that I am paying his debt."

He said that during his stay in Cambodia he was introduced to a Vietnamese man who forced him to prove his bona fides by smoking heroin. "F--- your mother, smoke or die," he claimed the man told him.

He was given sealer, rolls of plastic, scissors, gloves, tapes, glue, knives and a coffee grinder to crush the rock heroin into powder. He strapped the two packages tightly to his body, but on the flight to Singapore couldn't breathe properly so went to the toilet and removed the one attached to his abdomen. In a shower room at Changi Airport, he transferred it to his backpack.

Within weeks, Lasry and fellow Melbourne barrister Julian McMahon would begin Van's long legal fight. And once his trial, appeal and chance of clemency were lost, they unleashed a fierce public campaign to save his life. But the Singapore Government has refused to budge.

Lasry warned here would come a day when Singapore would have to face the reality that its mandatory death regime was unacceptable. "This argument won't end with our client's death," he said.

But Van had stayed clear of the law and had no Australian criminal record. Still, he often found himself in court to support his brother. Khoa was implicated last year in a vicious attack on a group of young men, one of whom he seriously wounded. He was given a three-year suspended prison sentence.

Khoa's solicitor, Brett Ryan, remembered Van years ago as a "pleasant, nice young man", but after his brother's arrest he underwent an "enormous personal change".

Late in 2002, Van began preparing for his first, and last, overseas trip since leaving Thailand as a baby. He suddenly told his mother he needed a "holiday", but in reality was desperate to make some cash. As it turns out, a Chinese man in Melbourne named Tan had offered a solution.

Van would later tell Singapore police that on Tan's instructions he had met a Vietnamese man in Sydney called Sun who asked him to bring a "package" from Cambodia to Australia via Singapore. He suspected he was bringing in drugs.

Van's mother was also suspicious. Van had become unusually quiet, as if he was under a lot of stress. But he told her: "Mum, I'm older. I'm just going on a holiday for a week and then I'll come back home."

Ten days later, as she stood in her kitchen after returning from work, federal police raided her home. Van had been arrested at Changi Airport. He had arrived on a flight from Cambodia, fallen asleep in transit and then rushed to catch a connecting Qantas flight home. It is believed his mobile phone set off an alarm as he walked through a metal detector. In their subsequent search, security officers found heroin strapped to his back and in his backpack.

The seriousness of his predicament struck immediately. He cried and tried to hit his head into a wall.

In his 14-page statement to police, Van said he agreed to the drug run to repay Khoa's debts of about $30,000. "I did not intend to let my twin brother know that I am paying his debt."

He said that during his stay in Cambodia he was introduced to a Vietnamese man who forced him to prove his bona fides by smoking heroin. "F--- your mother, smoke or die," he claimed the man told him.

He was given sealer, rolls of plastic, scissors, gloves, tapes, glue, knives and a coffee grinder to crush the rock heroin into powder. He strapped the two packages tightly to his body, but on the flight to Singapore couldn't breathe properly so went to the toilet and removed the one attached to his abdomen. In a shower room at Changi Airport, he transferred it to his backpack.

Within weeks, Lasry and fellow Melbourne barrister Julian McMahon would begin Van's long legal fight. And once his trial, appeal and chance of clemency were lost, they unleashed a fierce public campaign to save his life. But the Singapore Government has refused to budge.

Lasry warned here would come a day when Singapore would have to face the reality that its mandatory death regime was unacceptable. "This argument won't end with our client's death," he said.

[Locust]

This is what you call MURDER by the state of Singapore...
The positive impression I held for Singapore is FOREVER SHATTERED.....

[Pho-sure]

Hanging is cruel, barbaric and immoral

One last touching joke before the end

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/12/02/coffin_wideweb__470x401,0.jpg

On his way home … Nguyen's body lies in peace.
Photo: AP
Related coverage

* Divisions deepen as Nguyen goes to the gallows
* Flowers and tears for a life cut short
* Death of compassion
* Too little, too late to save Nguyen
* Your say: How do you feel?
* Multimedia: A wasted life
* Photos: Prayers and grief

AdvertisementAdvertisement
By Steve Butcher and Connie Levett in Singapore
December 3, 2005
Page 1 of 2

"DO I have a chance?" he joked.

As he stood in the doorway of his cell, just a short walk from the gallows, Nguyen Tuong Van turned to his guards and asked the question all Changi prisoners ask as they leave for court.

"Bu chance bu?" he said, using the Hokkien or Chinese dialect favoured by prisoners.

He then walked to the gallows trapdoor to the religious singing of his fellow inmates. He was hanged at 6am Singapore time for smuggling 396.2 grams of heroin.

His mother, Kim, prayed for him at a convent near the prison. His twin brother, Khoa, and four of his close friends waited nervously in the prison reception.

Nguyen's body was taken from the prison by two officials from the Australian high commission to a funeral parlour 30 minutes away. He was placed in a wooden coffin, with a glass panel covering the face. A religious portrait rested on his chest and in his folded hands he clutched a cross and rosary.

The coffin was taken to the nearby Marymount Convent where his family, who will fly back with the body today, held a private service.

One of Nguyen's lawyers, Julian McMahon, told the Herald yesterday that Nguyen had planned his last words as a surprise for the guards. "One of the endearing things about Van in the last year of his life, and especially in the last few weeks, was his capacity to be cheerful and witty. The term he used is the standard joke that prisoners say to the guards on the way to their trial.

"He thought that it would be very funny if he said that to his guards just as he began his 45-second walk from his cell to the gallows."

Mr McMahon said Nguyen had died a good and peaceful death.

He was not a special martyr or hero, he just "profoundly moved all of those he has come into contact with and he carried that right up to his death".

Nguyen was comforted on his last night by Father Gregoire Van Giang. They read the Bible and recited the 23rd Psalm: "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil" the psalm begins.

Father Giang performed the last rites before Nguyen, hooded and handcuffed, was positioned on the trapdoor. His death was witnessed by a doctor and a select group of prison officials.

Singapore's outspoken hangman Darshan Singh did not perform the execution.

Outside the prison was a small shrine of candles set on hand-shaped coloured paper. Each hand contained a message of a support from those who attended the midnight to dawn vigil in nearby Changi village. Every hour until 6am two new candles appeared.

Mr McMahon said before the execution: "I will be praying for Van and his family and the people who mistakenly make these decisions and think that they're a good thing when they're fundamentally, morally the wrong thing to do."

Khao and Nguyen's friends remained in the prison reception centre until 7am when they returned to Marymount Convent to join Ms Nguyen and Lex Lasry, the second member of Nguyen's legal team.

On Thursday Ms Nguyen received one last small comfort, the touch of her son. "There was a grille and they were able to hold each others' hands and Kim was able to touch Van on the face," Mr McMahon said. "She was talking to him and was able to touch his hair and face. It was a great comfort to her."

The family had expected they would have to formally identify the body but that task and the body's collection were carried out by Annette Morris and Ross Tysoe of the high commission.

A requiem Mass will be held for Nguyen in Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral on Wednesday.

The Mass, which will be conducted in English and Vietnamese, will be led by Father Peter Hansen.

Father Hansen said he had written an "incredibly difficult" letter to Nguyen this week to get his approval for the Mass.

"He was enthusiastic that his life would be remembered in that way," he said.

[Thuan Dragon]

Oh my goodness this is so sad.

[Saigoneseguy]

yes it was sad

welcome to the forum Thuan Dragon!