A family photo of Nguyen Tuong Van

UNITED NATIONS. UN OFFICIAL URGES SINGAPORE NOT TO EXECUTE AUSTRALIAN

November 15, 2005: Philip Alston, special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions for the UN Commission on Human Rights, urged the Singapore government not to hang Nguyen Tuong Van, a convicted Australian heroin trafficker, saying the execution violated international legal standards.
Singapore had turned down clemency requests from Australia and the Roman Catholic Church for Nguyen, who received a mandatory death sentence after being caught with 396 grams of heroin at the city-state's Changi Airport in 2002. Singapore's government said the death penalty was a deterrent against serious crimes such as murder and firearm use, and that it helped keep crime and drug abuse rates low.
Alston said the city-state's use of a mandatory death sentence for certain drug trafficking convictions was inappropriate.
"Making such a penalty mandatory - thereby eliminating the discretion of the court - makes it impossible to take into account mitigating or extenuating circumstances and eliminates any individual determination of an appropriate sentence in a particular case," Alston said.
"The adoption of such a black and white approach is entirely inappropriate where the life of the accused is at stake," Alston said. "Once the sentence has been carried out it is irreversible." (Sources: Dow Jones Commodities Service, 15/11/2005)