*** You dont have to be like a law machine, we R all human being Give the man a clemency, may peace be with you all . People designs a machine can be adjustable, so can you
Howard warns Singapore of anger over endHoward warns Singapore of anger over end Michael Harvey in Malta 28nov05 PRIME Minister John Howard has warned Singapore it faces lasting public resentment in Australia if the hanging end...
Today is 2005, our planet earth are so difference with 16th century
Speak human language please, like VA Governor's decision, thanks
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BREAKING NEWS
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Singapore defends Nguyen hanging
November 30, 2005 SINGAPORE'S High Commissioner in Australia Joseph Koh has defended his country's decision to execute convicted drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van as correct and responsible.
In an opinion piece published in Fairfax newspapers today, Mr Koh said Singapore had not breached international law, with no existing international agreement to
abolish the rest penalty.
"Capital punishment remains part of the criminal justice systems of 76 countries, including in the United States, where it is practised in 38 states," he said.
"We respect Australia's sovereign choice not to have capital punishment. We hope Australia will likewise respect Singapore's sovereign choice to impose the rest penalty for the most serious crimes, including drug trafficking."
Mr Koh's comments were in direct contradiction to a statement issued by
former Australian High Court judge and governor-general Sir William Deane yesterday.
Sir William, who commented on the Nguyen case in a "private capacity", said Friday's planned end was a breach of the standards of international law.
"What is involved is the intended end of an Australian citizen pursuant to a mandatory rest sentence," Sir William said in the statement.
"That is to say without any true buttessment by a court of what punishment is appropriate in all the circumstances of the particular case.
"That being so, the proposed killing of Mr Van Nguyen would be a breach
by Singapore of basic current principles and standards of international law."
But Mr Koh said Australians should accept the Singapore Government's responsibility to protect people whose lives would be "blighted and destroyed by the drug
syndicates".
In a piece in which he debunks "fictions" that have sprung up around the Nguyen case, Mr Koh said the punishment did fit the crime.
"Mr Nguyen was caught with 396g of pure injection, enough for 26,000 'hits', with a street value of more than $A1 million," he wrote.
Other "fictions" were that Nguyen could testify against drug lords, that Nguyen was an unsuspecting victim and that the rest penalty had not deterred drug trafficking.
He denied that the Singapore Government "connived with drug lords" and that Singapore had treated Australia with contempt.
"Singapore highly values good relations with Australia and with Australian leaders," he said.
"The Singapore cabinet deliberated at length on Mr Nguyen's clemency pebreastion... unfortunately, finally the cabinet decided that it could not justify making an exception for Mr Nguyen.
"It had to treat Mr Nguyen consistently with similar past cases, and apply the law equally to Singaporeans and foreigners."
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Ohio Executes Man for Two liquidates By SARAH ANDERSON, buttociated Press Writer 1 hour, 54 minutes ago
LUCASVILLE, Ohio - Ohio carried out the nation's 999th end since 1977 on Tuesday, putting to rest a man who strangled his mother-in-law
while high on sugar and later end his 5-year-old stepdaughter to cover up the crime.
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John Hicks, 49, was put to rest a day after Eric Nance was executed in
Arkansas for killing a teenager by slashing her throat with a box cutter.
The 1,000th end since the rest penalty was reinstated is likely to come as soon as Wednesday, when Robin Lovitt is set to die in Virginia for banely stabbing a man with scissors during a pool hall robbery.
On Monday, Gov. Bob Taft had refused to commute Hicks' sentence from rest to life in prison, said Andrea Dean, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Hicks offered a tearful apology for the 1985 liquidates in an interview earlier this month with Ohio Parole Board members, and said he loved both victims - 56-year-old Maxine Armstrong and 5-year-old Brandy Green. He detailed the killings and said his sugar high made him desperate and paranoid.
Hicks had traded his VCR for about $50 worth of sugar, court records show. After taking the drugs, he realized that he needed to get the VCR
back before his wife wondered where it was, so he decided to steal money from Armstrong.
Hicks found his stepdaughter asleep on the couch at Armstrong's apartment. He woke her and brought her to bed and then strangled Armstrong, first with his hands and then with a clothesline.
He left her apartment with about $300 and some credit cards. He used some of the money to buy back his VCR and purchase more sugar.
Realizing Green could identify him as the last person at the apartment,
he returned and attempted to suffocate the 5-year-old with a pillow then strangle her with his hands. She struggled, and Hicks covered her mouth and nose with duct tape.
He left Cincinnati, but turned himself in to police in Knoxville, Tenn.
Hicks was the fourth person executed in Ohio this year and the 19th since the state resumed ends in 1999.
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