The Sad Short Life of Van Tuong Nguyen
On 12 December 2002 Van Tuong Nguyen, a 22 year-old Australian citizen of Vietnamese origin, was arrested at Singapore's Changi airport in transit from Cambodia to Australia after there was discovered upon his person 13.9 ounces of pure heroin. In March 2004 he was convicted under Singapore's strict "Misuse of Drugs Act," which carries a mandatory death sentence for anyone found guilty of trafficking in more than 15 grams of heroin. Nguyen was sentenced, as they say, to hang by the neck until dead.
Van and his identical twin brother, Khoa, were born on 17 August 1980 in a refugee camp in southern Thailand. Their mother, Kim, had just fled her native Vietnam in a makeshift boat. The boys' grandfather had worked for a French company and his brother for the Americans; both were imprisoned by the North Vietnamese after the Americans, in April 1975, shredded their documents and fled their embassy by air, as their South Vietnamese collaborators scaled the walls and leapt for the helicopters.
The birth was by caesarian, so Kim wasn't sure which son had been born first. Because Van was a little heavier at birth, she designated him the "older brother," a decision with weighty consequences, as it fell upon the "first-born" son to uphold the family name and assume the burden of responsibility.
Although Kim believed her infant sons were fated to spend their childhood amid the misery and squalor of the refugee camp, she was able to make her way to Australia with her boys on her back when they were six months old, eventually settling in Melbourne.
Annie Hawkins, a kindergarten teacher at St. Ignatius Kindergarten, where Van and Khoa were enrolled, remembered the four-year-olds as sad but inseparable boys, clinging to each other and speaking in Vietnamese. It was the first time they'd been separated from their mother. But despite their troubles, she said, they were "the most delightful little boys, full of energy and very loving - and very funny." Even at that age, moreover, Van took the role of protector and always ensured Khoa was happy and safe, a role that several teachers and friends down the year would confirm.
Kim remarried in 1989, but her new husband secretly beat the boys, something she discovered on her own, as the boys never told her. In high school, it became clearer that although the boys were identical, as someone put it, they were completely different. Van was a good student, well mannered and responsible, while Khoa had started to rebel, dabbling in drugs and alcohol and eventually graduating to heroin while running up $30,000 in debts. Khoa served time for drug-trafficking offences and was released from prison in July 2002.
It was to pay off Khoa's debts that Van agreed, in December of 2002, to carry the drugs from Cambodia to Australia via Singapore, his first trip outside of Australia since he'd arrived.
As Van sat in prison, the legal efforts to mitigate the sentence began to exhaust themselves. A fellow inmate, the man scheduled to hang before Van, described him as a "baby among hardened criminals."
The Singaporean government rejected all appeals by the Australian legal team that was working the Nguyen case, as well as by the diplomatic envoys of the Australian government. It was beginning to look like Van Truong Nguyen would die shortly on a noose. Kim and Khoa Nguyen flew to Singapore and made personal appeals.
In a particularly cruel twist, Singaporean laws forbid any physical contact between death row inmates and family members prior to execution for reason of the potentially "traumatising" effect such contact can have on the condemned. As the situation began to look hopeless, Kim Nguyen's efforts became focused on merely hugging her child, whom she had not touched in years, one last time before he died. The Singaporean prime minister, however, refused even this small request. Only when the Australian prime minister himself personally intervened did the Singaporean government agree to relax the restriction and allow Kim Nguyen to hold Van's hand. Nevertheless, a hug was out of the question.
On the day before the scheduled execution, Kim Nguyen reached her hand through a steel grille to touch the hand of her son for some moments. Later, she told a lawyer that she was allowed so much as to touch his face and hair, which she found to be "a great comfort." During their brief conversation, Van told her he was frightened to die, particularly at so young an age, but had come to accept his fate.
This morning at dawn, Van Truong Nguyen, clutching his rosary beads and reciting psalm 23 again and again, walked through the shadow of the valley of death to the gallows where he was hanged by the neck until he was dead.
Van and his identical twin brother, Khoa, were born on 17 August 1980 in a refugee camp in southern Thailand. Their mother, Kim, had just fled her native Vietnam in a makeshift boat. The boys' grandfather had worked for a French company and his brother for the Americans; both were imprisoned by the North Vietnamese after the Americans, in April 1975, shredded their documents and fled their embassy by air, as their South Vietnamese collaborators scaled the walls and leapt for the helicopters.
The birth was by caesarian, so Kim wasn't sure which son had been born first. Because Van was a little heavier at birth, she designated him the "older brother," a decision with weighty consequences, as it fell upon the "first-born" son to uphold the family name and assume the burden of responsibility.
Although Kim believed her infant sons were fated to spend their childhood amid the misery and squalor of the refugee camp, she was able to make her way to Australia with her boys on her back when they were six months old, eventually settling in Melbourne.
Annie Hawkins, a kindergarten teacher at St. Ignatius Kindergarten, where Van and Khoa were enrolled, remembered the four-year-olds as sad but inseparable boys, clinging to each other and speaking in Vietnamese. It was the first time they'd been separated from their mother. But despite their troubles, she said, they were "the most delightful little boys, full of energy and very loving - and very funny." Even at that age, moreover, Van took the role of protector and always ensured Khoa was happy and safe, a role that several teachers and friends down the year would confirm.
Kim remarried in 1989, but her new husband secretly beat the boys, something she discovered on her own, as the boys never told her. In high school, it became clearer that although the boys were identical, as someone put it, they were completely different. Van was a good student, well mannered and responsible, while Khoa had started to rebel, dabbling in drugs and alcohol and eventually graduating to heroin while running up $30,000 in debts. Khoa served time for drug-trafficking offences and was released from prison in July 2002.
It was to pay off Khoa's debts that Van agreed, in December of 2002, to carry the drugs from Cambodia to Australia via Singapore, his first trip outside of Australia since he'd arrived.
As Van sat in prison, the legal efforts to mitigate the sentence began to exhaust themselves. A fellow inmate, the man scheduled to hang before Van, described him as a "baby among hardened criminals."
The Singaporean government rejected all appeals by the Australian legal team that was working the Nguyen case, as well as by the diplomatic envoys of the Australian government. It was beginning to look like Van Truong Nguyen would die shortly on a noose. Kim and Khoa Nguyen flew to Singapore and made personal appeals.
In a particularly cruel twist, Singaporean laws forbid any physical contact between death row inmates and family members prior to execution for reason of the potentially "traumatising" effect such contact can have on the condemned. As the situation began to look hopeless, Kim Nguyen's efforts became focused on merely hugging her child, whom she had not touched in years, one last time before he died. The Singaporean prime minister, however, refused even this small request. Only when the Australian prime minister himself personally intervened did the Singaporean government agree to relax the restriction and allow Kim Nguyen to hold Van's hand. Nevertheless, a hug was out of the question.
On the day before the scheduled execution, Kim Nguyen reached her hand through a steel grille to touch the hand of her son for some moments. Later, she told a lawyer that she was allowed so much as to touch his face and hair, which she found to be "a great comfort." During their brief conversation, Van told her he was frightened to die, particularly at so young an age, but had come to accept his fate.
This morning at dawn, Van Truong Nguyen, clutching his rosary beads and reciting psalm 23 again and again, walked through the shadow of the valley of death to the gallows where he was hanged by the neck until he was dead.
posted by Q at 11:26 PM
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