Pubdate: Fri, 25 Nov 2005
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2005 The Age Company Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5
Author: Connie Levett
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Death+Penalty (Death Penalty)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

HARD MAN OF VICTORIA FAILS TO SOFTEN HEARTS

IT WAS news they had received before, but that didn't make it any
easier to hear: the Singapore Government sees no further grounds to
review Nguyen Tuong Van's death sentence.

After a hastily arranged meeting with senior minister Ho Peng Kee in
Singapore yesterday, Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls had lunch
with Nguyen's mother Kim and twin brother Khoa. But he was unable to
deliver them much hope.

Mr Hulls said it was one of the toughest meetings he'd had, "talking
to a mother who knows in all likelihood her son is going to be
executed in just over a week".

"She is in absolute distress and disbelief," he said. "The son who
told her he was going on a holiday and never came home has been in
jail in Singapore ever since."

Mr Hulls came to Singapore with a letter from Victorian Premier Steve
Bracks for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Mr Lee was due to leave
yesterday for the Commonwealth heads of government talks in Malta, and
the meeting fell to Professor Ho, a lower-tier minister with the
impressive title Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs,
but no great influence in government. Professor Ho promised to deliver
the letter to Mr Lee urgently.

But in a statement issued last night, he said while Singapore
recognised that many Australians were disappointed with its decision,
it also had to protect the interests of its citizens.

He said the issue was the right of a sovereign state to apply its laws
to people who had committed crimes within its jurisdiction.

Mr Hulls said he "made it very clear to the minister the mandatory
death penalty is a very brutal way of ending a young life". He said
Professor Ho made comments that showed he understood the close
relations between Singapore and Australia.

During his later meeting with a sometimes teary Mrs Nguyen, Mr Hulls
said she spoke warmly of how her son had grown spiritually and
emotionally in prison. Mr Hulls relayed how Nguyen was "looked up to
by other inmates as somebody who is friendly, with a sense of humour
and assists other prisoners".

"He has grown in spirit," Mr Hulls said. "This is a person who is ripe
for rehabilitation and that is why the mandatory death penalty is so
inappropriate."

The imprisonment has also had a great impact on Khoa. "Khoa opened up
and was telling me about his relationship with his brother," Mr Hulls
said. "He was telling me how he has changed dramatically since his
brother has been in jail and how (Van) had given him a lot of strength
and turned him around in direction." Khoa now wants to undertake
tertiary studies.

Mr Hulls said the Victorian Government was not trying to belittle
Nguyen's crime, one that would carry a jail term of up to 25 years
here. But it was important to convey its vehement opposition to the
death penalty. 
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