Hands for Nguyen on display
18nov05
THOUSANDS of hand-shaped notes seeking clemency for convicted
Australian drug smuggler Van Tuong Nguyen will go on display in
Melbourne today.
It is a last ditch bid to save the 25 year-old Melbourne man due to
face the gallows in Singapore's Changi prison on December 2,
despite repeated pleas from human rights organisations, the
Australian government and two popes.
The "Reach Out" public campaign representing the only contact
between Nguyen and his mother - with their hands pressed up against
a glass partition - will go on display at Melbourne's State
Library, in Swanston Street.
The display will be opened by Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls
at 10am (AEDT) before Nguyen's supporters bundle up the notes which
are to be presented to the Singaporian government in coming
days.
Nguyen, on death row in island state which maintains a hard-line on
drug trafficking, was arrested at Singapore's Changi airport in
late 2002, where he was found to be carrying 396 grams of
heroin.
Pleas, from Prime Minister John Howard down, to have Nguyen's death
sentence reduced to a lengthy prison term have so far failed.
His distraught mother, Kim Nguyen, was informed by post yesterday
of the execution date.
"By letter, by registered letter delivered to her house ... it's
incredibly impersonal," said Nguyen's Australian lawyer Lex Lasry,
QC, said.
"I must say my overwhelming emotion at the moment, apart from being
distressed by this, I'm angry.
"I'm angry that they (the Singapore government) do such a thing in
such an impersonal way and I'm angry that they won't see the
injustice."
Mr Lasry and another lawyer, Julian McMahon, will fly to Singapore
today and hope to see Nguyen tomorrow.
Mr Lasry said Nguyen's mother was expected to leave for Singapore
within a week.
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17284961%255E421,00.html
