Singapore - Murder capital of the world

You think I exaggerate?
Singapore 'tops execution league'

Singapore has the world's highest per capita execution rate, according to a report by Amnesty International. The report said the Asian city-state, which has a population of four million, had hanged more than 400 prisoners in the last 13 years. The rate is three times that of Saudi Arabia, the next country on the list.

So it's hardly surprising they executed an Australian drug courier for 400g of heroin.
Now given that Singapore's Prime Minister is so tough on drugs;

We take a very serious view of drug trafficking - the penalty is death,

I'd like to help him solve the crime for which he killed Nguyen Tuong Van.
I think I might know who supplied the drugs Nguyen was carrying.
Burma.
But then again, I think the Prime Minister (not democratically elected but related to his father) of Singapore might have an inkling it was Burma Who Dunnit.

SINGAPORE'S economic linkage with Burma is one of the most vital factors for the survival of Burma’s military regime," says Professor Mya Maung, a Burmese economist based in Boston. This link, he continues, is also central to "the expansion of the heroin trade." Singapore has achieved the distinction of being the Burmese junta’s number one business partner - both largest trading partner and largest foreign investor. More than half these investments, totalling upwards of $1.3 billion, are in partnership with Burma’s infamous heroin kingpin Lo Hsing Han who now controls a substantial portion of the world’s opium trade. The close political, economic and military relationship between the two countries facilitates the weaving of millions of narco-dollars into the legitimate world economy.

So given that "drug trafficking is taken seriously and the penalty is death", I'd like to know when Singapore is declaring war on Burma?
In the meantime, I'd like to know why my favourite benevolent dictatorship has the highest execution (Murder) rate in the world.  Nice Airline. Nice place for a Singapore Stopover.

I don't mind so much the trading with Burma, or the strong stance on drug couriers.
It's the combined hypocrisy of executing people as an indirect cause of the very country supplying 60% of the worlds heroin with which you do business with. That's just like executing a man carrying heroin which will indirectly cause suffering to others, isn't it?  But that's benevolent dictatorships for you.

On the other hand, looking at the economic prosperity of Singapore, USA, Saudi Arabia, and China, maybe an economic boost to any economy would be to execute more people! 

Comments

[jessie]

the law may be harsh but that is the law.

we can't do anything now. the australian man is dead. all we can do now is to teach everyone not to do anything with drugs.

[Tony Goodson]

Some people will always be involved with taking drugs. That's not the issue.
It's the hypocrisy of it all.
And just because a law is a law doesn't make it right. Laws are there to be changed.

I just watched George Best's funeral.
Did heroin kill him?
Which drug killed him?
Yes, the one that's legally sanctioned and kills more people than any other drug.
Alcohol.
This isn't about the law and drugs, this is about state sanctioned executions (murder).

If it made any difference to the drug trade then I might support it, but it doesn't.

There's something about this execution that sat above others, and now I know what it is.
Singapore per capita executes more people than any country in the world.
That doesn't sit comfortably with me.

Singapore understands only one word. Money.
So let Australia ask Singapore which colour on the map it wants be. Does it want to join the civilised world and stop executing people, or does it want to carry on proud to be top of the league table at something.
Highest executions per capita.

[Lexx]

Nguyen's brother also a convicted trafficker

Aussie court suppressed fact that he was a drug runner and given jail term for savage attack on teen

SYDNEY - THE brother of an Australian drug courier hanged in Singapore is a convicted drug trafficker and had been sentenced to jail for a savage samurai sword attack, but details of the case were suppressed due to fear that they could jeopardise clemency appeals.

KHOA'S CRIMINAL BACKGROUND was not publicised in Australia, in order to avoid jeopardising his twin brother's plea for clemency in Singapore. -- EPA

The Australian reported yesterday that Nguyen Tuong Van's brother, Nguyen Khoa Dang, in 1998 repeatedly slashed a teenager with a samurai sword, seriously wounding the 17-year-old's arm, buttock, ankle and left knee.

He was sentenced to three years in jail for the attack, which resulted in the victim requiring plastic surgery.

But County Court judge Meryl Sexton suspended the jail term because Khoa's 'personal situation...(had) become so traumatic because of (his) brother's situation', the newspaper reported.

The judge ordered that the sentence be suspended partly because his twin brother was awaiting execution in Singapore.

She also banned publication of case details while Australian officials repeatedly appealed to Singapore not to hang Nguyen, said The Australian.

Details of Khoa's conviction could be published yesterday for the first time after Judge Sexton lifted a publication restriction imposed to avoid jeopardising Ngu- yen's plea for clemency.

Khoa faced court in June last year, where he pleaded guilty to riotous assembly and recklessly causing serious injury.

In December 1998, Khoa was involved in a brawl between Asian and Islander youths in a park in the northern Melbourne suburb of Reservoir.

The prosecution alleged that Khoa armed himself with a samurai sword and struck Glen Kohu repeatedly, causing him serious injury.

The Australian reported Judge Sexton as saying that Kohu was confined to a wheelchair after the attack, forced to leave school and had since struggled to stay employed.

The trial took more than four years to reach the county court, partly because of concerns about the effect it would have on the Singapore trial of Nguyen, who was arrested in December 2002, according to The Australian.

In April 2003, Judge Sexton agreed to adjourn the case because of Nguyen's trial in Singapore.

'Amongst the reasons for my doing so which I can refer to was the effect on you of having your twin brother awaiting trial in Singapore for a capital offence,' The Australian quoted her as saying.

Khoa is a convicted drug trafficker.

He had also previously served time for drug-trafficking offences and was released from prison in July 2002.

Nguyen claimed in his trial that he had been trying to smuggle heroin to pay for his brother's mounting legal bills, partly incurred by the court case that followed Khoa's involvement in the brawl.

The court heard that Khoa, now 25, left home against his mother's wishes, abused drugs and alcohol and was a frequent customer of Melbourne's Crown casino.

Nguyen's arrest had resulted in 'an increase in (the) level of (Khoa's) maturity' but he had relapsed into heroin use in 2003, possibly as a result of his brother's arrest in Singapore, The Australian quoted Judge Sexton as saying.

Khoa was in Singapore last week for the execution of his brother.

Nguyen's family left last night for Australia with his body.

Mr Lex Lasry, who has been the family spokesman, addressed the media although the family members kept mum at Changi Airport yesterday evening.

Asked about Khoa's criminal record, Mr Lasry said he did not know about it and dismissed it as irrelevant.

'I don't have a view about it,' he said.

'I've got some views about Khoa and where he's going from here and I don't want to say anything about that.'

[Tony Goodson]

I already knew all that.
What has that got to do with Nguyen's case?
And why is Singapore executing 4 times the number of people compared to the next highest country?

[Lukin]

Green Disease & Indifference
www.vizitsingapore.com

[Fishin]

It is an automatic death sentence for traffiking illegal drugs beyond a certain amount.

This is not the first time it has happened. If the drug dealers want bragging rights at the risk of their lives, so be it.

[Red]

_sigh_
yes it's been a long time and this thread should be put to rest, but i hate disinformation with a passion, and it's the uneducated elements in posts like these that greatly frustrate me. I'm not even going to take an opinion with the main issues in here, so there is no need to argue with me. I would simply like to point out a few elements:

1- Quote:
"This isn't about the law and drugs, this is about state sanctioned executions (murder)."

the very dictionary defines murder as "the UNLAWFUL premeditated act of one human being killing another". The use of the word murder in your context falsely uses the implies connotations of the word to throw the subject in bad light.

2- Quote:
"Singapore per capita executes more people than any country in the world.
That doesn't sit comfortably with me." And many other repetitions of "highest executions per capita" littered throughout the many posts.

Would you happen to know what per capita means?

i quote:
"And why is Singapore executing 4 times the number of people compared to the next highest country?"

Hm, obviously not. per capita is a RATIO. The next highest country on the list, Saudi Arabia, has executed more people than Singapore. However, due to its small population, the per capita ratio of executions is higher.

3- I quote:
"So given that "drug trafficking is taken seriously and the penalty is death", I'd like to know when Singapore is declaring war on Burma?"

Commentary: plainly ridiculous for SO many reasons. Non-sequitur being the most obvious.

[vidz]

Your blog is ignorant and malicious against the Singaporean government. Despite a certain degree of nepotism being involved, the government IS ELECTED DEMOCRATICALLY. We keep voting for the PAP cos "if it aint broke, don't fix it." As a sociology major, neither am I a government lackey. The truth is money talks, but there is little corruption and despite our small size and ZERO natural resources, we have the BEST port, BEST schools, BEST roads, BEST zoo, BEST airports... etc... no surprise we are the most efficient at executions. So get your facts right Tony. Also, Singapore is one of the SAFEST cities in the world, and as a (desirable) woman I am profoundly aware of this, especially when I walk home at 3 am after clubbing or a late movie and I feel perfectly safe.
These stringent measures DO make a difference. Because there is alot of violence associated with drug trafficking and drug addicts that we have managed to avoid. It is very hard to find drugs and even weed anywhere except seedy areas like Geylang and other red-light districts. I am being neither elitist or bougeois when I say this, as two of my uncles are drug addicts and have both served time in remand centres, so i do have some inside information. Drug trafficking here is mostly tied to gang activities (as in other countries) but with much lesser violence than normal. The only major gang that deals in drugs are the Omega, and the police keep very strict tabs on them. It should be noted that the members of Omega tend to disporportionately malay, the poorest demographic in our country, so they have many entry level members who are willing to take the fall and are consequently very hard to pin down. (I am not making this up either as my proffessor infiltrated this gang for her thesis.) We have practically NO muggings, normatively perpetrated by indigent drug addicts in other countries. We have no gang shoot outs or turf wars. Very few pickpockets or thefts. Virtually no break-ins, No STDS caused by contaminate syringes.... Do you see what I'm getting at? Capital punishment is an EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE deterrent in our particular case. Just step across the border to malaysia and crime rates are dramatically different and it is unsafe for women, forget about going home alone or hailing a taxi in the night. You may claim I have little compassion for the families of the executed (NOT murdered) people, but my OWN uncle barely escaped the death penalty a decade ago for possessing Marijuana, so I have an inkling what it feels like. His own immediate family never once blamed the government but lamented that it was his own fault. He KNEW the laws and he CHOSE to break it. And of course these "innocent" drug traffickers knowingingly cause the slow deaths of drug addicts and each drug addict in turn, destroys his family. In comparison to THAT number, our government actually executes very few people. Hah! so what I'm trying to say tony, is that your are clearly taking outta your ass!