The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a 25-year-old convicted drug courier, Nguyen Tuong Van, is to be hanged on 2 December after was caught carrying 400 grams of heroin into Singapore.
Looks like Kambuckta beat me to it by several hours in this Pit thread.
Yes, I agree with Kambuckta. Fuck off , Singapore.
It seems stupidity really can be a death sentence.
I’m sorry for his family but the guy could not have been unaware of the risk he was running.
What I don’t get is, he was travelling through Singapore, not to or from it. Is being in transit between flights in the airport even counted as being in Singapore for this purpose? Given he was not endangering Singapore itself wth those drugs, why do they want to kill him?
I don’t see a problem with his execution.
Singapore runs a very strictly controlled society. What he did can be considered analogous to treason and that is the highest ranking capital offense. They really don’t want hard drugs there and who can blame them. The cows are out of the barn in the U.S. but I would advise any country that has a chance of stopping heroin coming into its borders to do what it takes. There is a very real threat to the life and well-being of its citizens. That should not be discounted.
In addition, they say that capital punishment is not a deterrent. I find that hard to believe in this case. Drug couriers will actively avoid Singapore once they see what happens to this guy. It is a deliberate crime that is all about risks and rewards. Once the risks are stacked that high, at least some rational people will see that they better find something else to do. Transporting drugs is not a crime of passion like 2nd degree murder so participants have plenty of time to weigh and choose options.
I don’t understand why people focus on criminals that are on death row. They consciously played an odds game and lost. People lose their lives every day doing things they know might get them killed at that is not news or the focus of outrage. All people die. He made his decision and now his death will come earlier than others. There is nothing shameful or outrageous about that. Managing risks and rewards is the essence of life and he chose poorly.
Yes man, I agree with Shagnasty. Singapore doesn’t want to kill people, it wants to stop people from bringing drugs into the country with its widely publicised death penalty. Anyone who has been to Singapore will know what I’m talking about. The warnings you get everywhere are enough to make you paranoid even if you’re not carrying drugs. Unfortunately the flip side of this is if somebody brings drugs into the country anyway they gotta kill them.
The reality is, Van Nguyen did a seriously dumb thing with (arguably) good intentions. As far as the public has been made aware he is a man of normal intelligence, smart enough to realise what he was doing and risking by taking heroin through a country that has a very strict set of penalties for such an act. Death being one of them.
He did it, apparantly, to try and help out his twin brother who was heavily in debt.
A good reason, but not something that excuses the act.
I do not support the death penalty and I do not think his crime should warrant it, even in a country that HAS the death penalty. However, regardless of what I might think about it, Singapore has the death penalty and they’re going to execute people when their courts deem it necessary.
His lawyers have said they will continue to try until the last possible minute, although I’m not sure what they can do from here on in. Good for them, though.
I seem to recall an article stating that Van Nguyen was not going to be allowed to see his mother and brother before the execution, which - if true - would make me quite angry. I will try to find that article…
I haven’t seen the figure quoted anywhere. Does anyone know how big the debt was?
The article in the OP shows the mother and brother leaving the gaol after a visit. And one of the Sydney papers published a copy of the official letter sent to the mother confirming the execution. It made references to additional visits.
Buckler of Swashing wrote
Would you call it a “good reason” if he had tried to murder someone for money?
But the death penalty?
Wouldn’t a long prison term, in this case, be more appropriate?
It might be different if the drugs had hit the streets in Singapore (where I think until recently, chewing gum was also banned).
But nobody got the drugs, nobody died, he wasn’t even planning to drop them off there.
Stupid thing to do, but the death penalty?
But as an American, I should probably shut up.
We have Texas.
And aside from the fact that they are listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records for having the most executions, it has recently come to light that one person was found (a little too late) to be innocent of the crime they killed him for.