Here in Aus at the moment there is a bit, OK, a LOT of a controversy regarding a young Melbourne fellow, Van Nguyen, who was caught in transit in Singapore transporting heroin from Cambodia to Australia. (Too many current cites to just isolate one…google it for any source you wish).
The brief synopsis though, is that Van was caught at Changi Airport with nearly 400gm of heroin in his possession. That’s more than enough to attract the death penalty in Singapore.
He pleaded guilty at the court hearing, and also offered to assist the police by naming his ‘sources’ and the syndicate who had paid him to import the drugs. Van Nguyen claimed that he was doing it to help pay back his twin brother’s gambling debts.
Regardless of his co-operation with the authorities, regardless that he has NO prior convictions or any other misdemeanours under his name, regardless that Van was only in transit when he was arrested (and thus no ‘threat’ to the Singaporean community), he is now going to be hanged on December 2 for his crime.
His mum got a letter last week from the Singapore Penal Service telling her the date her son was going to be executed. They offered to provide extra visiting times for family members, but also asked her what she wanted done with ‘The Body’ after the event.
I feel sickened by the whole thing,
Yes, Australian authorities have petitioned the Singaporean gummint to review the case, time and time again. It seems now all is lost. And a stupid young man must die for an act of utmost stupidity.
I know someone who was beaten severely by a heroin addict when he was dicovered robbing her house. To this day she doesn’t know whether she was sexually assaulted because the eividence was ‘ambiguous’ and she was unconscious for 4 days. The list of permanent physical damage is extensive but the psychological damage is worse.
I have little sympathy for anyone who enegages in heroin use, and least sympathy for those who traffic in it. I have no sympathy at all for someone stupid enough to take heroin into Singapore of all places. Does anyone in the world not know that there is a mandatory death penalty? Do they no longer have the in-flight announcements in 5 languages they had 10 years ago?
Pitting Singapore becuase they take the damage cause dby drugs seriously rather than trreating it as a joke is ridiculous. By all means object to the death penalty if you wish, but mandatory severe sentencing of drug traffickers is a good thing and should be extended worldwide.
I think overly broad application of the death penalty is moronic, as it removes the distinctiveness for truly capital crimes. Make the penalty for rape and murder equal, for instance, and you just created an incentive not to leave behind a living rape victim to testify against you.
Similarly, with this, you create extra incentive to flush out witnesses if the police are sniffing around the network. Not good.
So I have some problems with Singapore’s laws as well.
Still, I have to ask, kambuckta, would you be shedding any tears over this guy if he were killed by another dealer? Or would you just shrug your shoulders at just another criminal getting killed by another?
I am not objecting to severe sentencing. I am objecting to the imposition of the death penalty by the Singaporaen Authorities upon a person who had not purchased nor was going to be dealing drugs in Singapore in the first place.
Their mandate for applying the death penalty is to ensure that drugs are kept out of their country. The drugs were never going to BE in their country. Van Nguyen also assisted the police in their quest for finding the original dealers. Surely to God that has some place in the sentencing?
Yes, you may be right here Mr Moto. Had I not been alerted to this particular case, I probably would have shrugged off another Vietnamese Gangland killing in my hometown as just another boring news event.
But the difference is that this kid was NOT involved in any sort of crim activity before his arrest. All the indications are that he was a good kid who tried hard and just got himself involved into the wrong things at the wrong time.
My ask is that should he be executed for being a stupid fuckwit?
as well as an argument in favour of the hanging* of young men.
Young men are stupid and die all the time. That’s a great reason to execute them.
*AFAIK that’s how they would go about the execution in Singapore. The same thing happened to Dutchman Johannes Van Damme for much the same reason. Link.
I have a good friend who was beaten to within an inch of his life in an unprovoked attack by a drunk in a bar. He now walks around with a metal plate in his head.
I don’t (and neither does he) think that bartenders and beer companies should be held criminally responsible for his injuries.
Blame the assholes, not the drugs that they’re on.
I don’t know ANYONE who doesn’t know about the severe penalties all throughout SE Asia for being caught with drugs/trafficking drugs. I have as much sympathy for this asshole as I do for that Corby girl and that idiot lingerie model.
I’m not pro death penalty at all but if you’re going to engage in an activity that you know can be punished by death in a country you’re even just passing through you deserve anything you get, if only to remove your stupid ass from the gene pool.
It’s hard not to be affected by this case when you read about Van Nguyen’s mother and brother flying to Singapore but not being allowed to even touch him before he dies. The death penalty sucks big time. Mandatory versions of this barbaric penalty suck double. And I am sickened by the comments here that he deserves it because of the damage heroin does. A rape or murder victim doesn’t ask for it, but sticking that needle in your arm the first time is a choice. This shouldn’t be punishable by death. Well, nothing should, but especially not this.
If you’re suggesting that the U.S. treats drug abuse like a joke, with billions spent annually on the drug war, you must be on something yourself.
I don’t agree with the whole idea of outlawing narcotics, but still I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for the defendant in this story–he did admit to doing it and doesn’t appear to have been set up or framed. OTOH you’d think he’d at least merit a commuted sentence for his cooperation with law enforcement.
From simply a crime fighting standpoint there’s problems with this. What incentive is there to plead guilty or give up names if the criminal is going to be executed anyway? Why did this guy plead guilty for that matter? Well, the obvious answer must be he was ignorant of Singapore law.
Also, there’s no jury trial there, is there? I think (no cite, sorry) that when there’s mandatory harsh sentencing, juries tend to convict at lower rates.
Was the fellow in question not aware of the enormously strict anti-drug laws in Singapore? Not that ignorance of the law should necessarily be an excuse…