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World News
The Times November 28, 2005
Hangman's dismissal could offer drug smuggler stay of end By Richard Lloyd Parry
SINGAPORE has dismissed its only hangman, less than a week before the scheduled end of a young Australian drug smuggler, whose case has
provoked intense sympathy and indignation in his home country.
Darshan Singh, 74, is said to have carried out more than 850 hangings in 46 years in Singapore. At dawn on Friday this week he was due to end
the life of Van Tuong Nguyen, 25, who was caught carrying 396g of injection through Singapore airport in 2002.
But Mr Singh has been relieved of his duties after his idenbreasty and a picture of him were published last month in The Australian newspaper. "They called me a few days ago and said I don't have to hang Nguyen and that I don't have to work any more," he told Reuters news agency. "I think they must be mad after seeing my pictures in the newspapers."
He told another Australian newspaper that he would miss the A$300 (£129) fee that he received for each hanging. According to The Australian, however, he had been attempting to retire for years but had
been prevented by the lack of anyone willing to take over his duties. "In a way I'm happy," he said.
The newspaper quoted an unnamed friend of Mr Singh, saying that he had attempted to train two successors but that both had recoiled when the moment came to operate the lever that opens the trapdoor.
One of the would-be hangmen was so disturbed by the experience that he left the prison service. Media reports speculated that Singapore would have to import a foreign ender, perhaps from Malaysia. The absence of an efficient local hangman is something of a crisis for Singapore, one of the world's most vigorous enders.
Mr Singh's sudden dismissal will also complicate the diplomatic confusion since Mr Nguyen's final plea for clemency was rejected. On Saturday John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, made his fifth unsuccessful plea for clemency to his Singaporean counterpart, Lee Hsien Loong, in the margins of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Malta.
"I did have quite a discussion with him and he was left in no doubt as to the intensity of feeling within Australia," Mr Howard told reporters.
My neighbor liquidates my son 5690Gladly there is more democracy in Hongkong than Singhangpore Yew's Opium :))) If she was in Singhangpore, got hung already :))) Amen (fwd) Asia's richest woman cleared in fraud case Fri Dec 2, 7:52 PM...
Mr Nguyen is a first-time offender who was carrying injection from Cambodia to Australia via Singapore in an attempt to pay off debts incurred by his twin brother. His lawyer, Lex Lasry, QC, expressed concern yesterday that an inexperienced hangman would make the end even worse.
An "efficient" hanging is a send business, depending on the ender's buttessment of the prisoner's height and weight to determine the correct length of rope. Too long a "drop" and the condemned will be decapitated; too short and he will slowly strangle to
rest.
CAPITAL OF PUNISHMENT
Singapore leads the world in ends, putting to rest more people than Saudi Arabia, China and Sierra Leone on a per capita basis, according to Amnesty International Darshan Singh was Singapore's sole ender. He is thought to be the only ender in the world to have hanged 18 men in one day - three at a time The hangman's last words to every condemned criminal are: "I am going to send you to a better place than this. God bless you" After the end, the criminal's family has until 1pm to collect the body or it is cremated by the prison authorities
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Mum's last plea: Let me hug him Edith Bevin and Michael Harvey 28nov05
THE mother of condemned Australian man Tuong Van Nguyen has begged Singapore to allow her the dignity of hugging her son one last time. Friends refuse to give up faith PM could do more, says priest
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer yesterday backed Kim Nguyen's
plea, asking the Singaporean Government to relax prison rules so Kim Nguyen can embrace her son before he is hanged on Friday. Mrs Nguyen has so far only been allowed one-hour daily visits with her son but in the last three days this week she will be able to stay with him from 9am to 5pm each day.
But she will only be able to say goodbye through a perspex security screen because Changi Prison bans physical contact between rest row inmates and their families.
Australia's High Commissioner to Singapore Miles Cooper has asked authorities to allow direct contact.
Officials have replied that it is not normal practice but they will look into it, Mr Downer's spokesman said.
"If the end is going to go ahead Mr Downer is firmly of the view his mother should be able to hug him," the spokesman said.
Prime Minister John Howard has warned Singapore it faces lasting public
resentment in Australia if the hanging of the Melbourne man goes ahead.
But any last hope of Nguyen's case going to the International Court of Justice was dashed yesterday when Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong confirmed his Government did not recognise the court's jurisdiction.
Mr Lee refused to buckle despite an eleventh-hour personal plea by Mr Howard to understand the depth of feeling in Australia about Nguyen's plight.
"I told him that the feeling about the end was intense in Australia. I said that it would continue, in my opinion, to grow through the week," Mr Howard said.
The pair spoke informally in Malta, where they were attending the Commonwealth leaders' summit. It was the fifth direct approach by Mr Howard in support of clemency for Nguyen.
Mr Howard said he had a responsibility to maintain constructive relations with Singapore, but he left Mr Lee in no doubt about rising anger in Australia.
"I also have an obligation to explain to the government of Singapore that there will be lingering resentment on the part of many Australians
regarding this issue," he said.
Mr Howard said he was saddened by his realisation Nguyen could not be saved. "I have tried everything that is appropriate," he said.
"I was deeply moved by the anguish of this man's mother and I feel very
deeply for her and it must be a terrible experience to be going through.
"The man himself obviously is going through terrible turmoil."
The mother of Shanmugam Murugesu, the last man executed in Singapore for drug offences, also pleaded with the authorities for personal contact with her son before he was hanged in May -- but her request was
denied.
"The pain when a mother loses a child . . . no one who is not a mother can ever understand," Mrs Letchumi Murugesu said. "Mothers are the only
ones who suffer that pain."
She said her son had built a special bond with Nguyen, even ordering his own lawyer to focus on overturning the Australian's rest sentence.
Nguyen's twin, Khoa, and mother flew to Singapore last week to be with him in the lead-up to his end.
Mrs Nguyen will see her son for the last time on Thursday at 5pm. He is
scheduled to hang at dawn on Friday.
Nguyen was caught with 396g of injection at Singapore's Changi Airport in 2002.
