Nguyen's body to return home

The family of the executed drug trafficker Van Nguyen is preparing to bring his body home for burial.

They are expected to leave Singapore later today.

Nguyen was hanged in Singapore's Changi prison yesterday, becoming the first Australian to be executed overseas in 12 years.

Nguyen was convicted of trying to smuggle about 400 grams of heroin out of Cambodia into Australia in 2002.

One of Nguyen's lawyers, Julian McMahon, returned from Singapore this morning and says he hopes Nguyen's death galvanises Australians in opposing the death penalty.

"In order to have the moral authority to speak out in the cases like the one we've just seen, we must be consistently against this sort of pre-meditated state-sanctioned killing," he said.

Mr McMahon says his client should not be considered a martyr or a hero.

He says many people will mourn the futile loss of life.

"All of us who worked on his case have worked with many families destroyed by drugs," he said.

"What he was, was a young man who led a good life and then became a criminal for awhile and then completely rehabilitated himself."

Meanwhile Singapore's Opposition Leader Dr Chee Soon Juan says the Australian Government could have prevented the 25-year-old's death if it had exerted pressure sooner.

He is calling on the international community to campaign against the laws which led to Nguyen's execution.

"I think that it's gone beyond Australia and Singapore, it's become an international situation where Singapore continues to do this kind of excruciatingly hypocritical execution of small time drug peddlers and while these Burmese drug lords get away scot-free," he said.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Sat, 3 December 2005
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia Web)
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Copyright: 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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