Pubdate: Mon, 24 Oct 2005
Source: Australian, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2005sThe Australian
Contact: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/aus_letters.htm
Website: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/35

GOVERNMENT 'POWERLESS' IN DEATH ROW CASE

FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer says there is little more the 
Government can do to save the life of a 25-year-old Melbourne man on 
death row in Singapore.

Nguyen Van Tuong was sentenced to death after being found in 
possession of almost 400 grams of heroin at Changi Airport in December 2002.

The Australian Government's pleas for clemency were rejected by 
Singapore last week.

Mr Downer says while he feels terrible about the tragic situation, 
the Government has exhausted all available options.

"Tragically, and I feel very badly about this because I'm a complete 
opponent of capital punishment, I really do feel terribly sad about 
this, but I honestly, to be frank about it, I'm not sure that there's 
much else we can do," Mr Downer told ABC radio today.

"We've had the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and me lobbying 
every imaginable relevant person in Singapore over quite some long 
period of time now.

"I mean, we can make more appeals but I think at this point it's just 
not going to have any effect."

He said Singapore has executed a lot of people for drug trafficking 
over the years.

"They execute somewhere between 30 and 40 people a year for drug 
trafficking and to get an exception in this case was always going to 
be a long shot, but we thought it was important to do everything we 
possibly could," Mr Downer said.

Mr Nguyen's mother, Kim, yesterday appealed to the Federal Government 
to pressure Singapore into reassessing Nguyen's clemency bid.

But Mr Downer said today the Government had done everything in its power.

"I feel terribly sorry for her, first of all for her son, a most 
terrible situation to be in, but for the mother, you can only guess 
how she feels," he said.

"But of course, I think we all know this, in Asia, drug trafficking 
brings capital punishment.

"We've tried to put a case, in this case ... he's never been 
convicted of any offence before, he's young, we don't want to see him 
die, and we've pleaded with them but we've been unsuccessful and I'm 
not sure that there is anything else we can do.

"If there was something realistic and practical we could do, we would 
have done it."
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