establishment was about to get the same kind of unwanted attention. Nguyen was the first Australian citizen ever to be sentenced to death in Singapore and the prospect of his execution was gradually awakening angry human rights activists again down under and around the world. Australia had long ago abolished the death penalty as cruel and inhumane. Back home, Nguyen would most likely have got a prison sentence of 24 years with a third off for good behaviour. At 25, he would have had time to reshape his life, learned his lesson and become a good Aussie. But such thinking in Singapore, unless otherwise influenced, is not part of their thought process despite Changi Prisons proud motto: 'Captains of Lives: Rehab, Renew, Restart'. These words are even cynically - and perhaps deliberate and mockingly so - printed at the bottom of each letter sent to families from the prison governor announcing the day their loved one will be put to death. If not intentional, the meaning of hypocrisy must have been lost in translation from Mandarin to English.
As expected, my interview with the hangman added fuel to the growing furore as the execution day loomed nearer. When it hit the front pages Joseph Koh, Singapore's then High Commissioner in Canberra, was on the phone to the Foreign Affairs Minister with accounts of the potentially damaging interview he had just read with horror and dismay. In Australia I was told Foreign Minister Alexander Downer almost had an apoplexy over Darshan Singh's grisly revelations. In a statement he said he was 'outraged' over his comments and said the hangman 'should get a decent job'. Of course, it had put Downer firmly in the hot seat and under pressure by many of his emotional fellow citizens horrified at what was about to happen and wanting him to do something more positive to help save Nguyen's life. Many Aussies demanded he get tough with obstinate Singapore with an economic boycott and diplomatic reprisals.
As anti-government feelings were increasing and with an election coming up the following year, Prime Minister John Howard would come under fire as a result of another interview I obtained - this time with Mike McKenna, a reporter from The Australian with renowned criminal defence lawyer Subhas Anandan. During the interview Anandan, perhaps indiscreetly, revealed one of Singapore's best-kept legal secrets - that there is no separation between the executive and the judiciary He said that if the Australian government had intervened in Nguyen's case the moment he was arrested his life might have been saved. The charges could have been reduced at executive government level with a little tweaking of the facts as had been done in several of the cases I investigated. The inference was that, although Howard was aware of the legal nuances of Singapore law to enable this, he was not interested in saving the Melbourne man's life at any cost. During the interview Anandan criticised Australia's eleventh hour tardiness in coming forward only after every legal process had been exhausted, including an appeal to the President for clemency. He described it as
being 'like visiting a patient in hospital when he is already dead'.
What was never revealed after Nguyen's arrest and during his trial was that he had set out on his ill-fated trip completely oblivious to the fact that he was walking into a carefully laid trap. His activities as a drug trafficker were already known to Australia's Federal Police drugs unit even before he left home. Nguyen was shadowed everywhere he went the moment he agreed to take on the perilous assignment. Knowing his plans in advance, they watched him leave his home in Melbourne early that December morning for the airport where he bought a return ticket to Phnom Penh via Singapore. He was watched closely when he arrived at Changi airport. Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau agents knew he was coming, too. Then he was watched boarding a connecting flight to Cambodia. The Bureau immediately
As expected, my interview with the hangman added fuel to the growing furore as the execution day loomed nearer. When it hit the front pages Joseph Koh, Singapore's then High Commissioner in Canberra, was on the phone to the Foreign Affairs Minister with accounts of the potentially damaging interview he had just read with horror and dismay. In Australia I was told Foreign Minister Alexander Downer almost had an apoplexy over Darshan Singh's grisly revelations. In a statement he said he was 'outraged' over his comments and said the hangman 'should get a decent job'. Of course, it had put Downer firmly in the hot seat and under pressure by many of his emotional fellow citizens horrified at what was about to happen and wanting him to do something more positive to help save Nguyen's life. Many Aussies demanded he get tough with obstinate Singapore with an economic boycott and diplomatic reprisals.
As anti-government feelings were increasing and with an election coming up the following year, Prime Minister John Howard would come under fire as a result of another interview I obtained - this time with Mike McKenna, a reporter from The Australian with renowned criminal defence lawyer Subhas Anandan. During the interview Anandan, perhaps indiscreetly, revealed one of Singapore's best-kept legal secrets - that there is no separation between the executive and the judiciary He said that if the Australian government had intervened in Nguyen's case the moment he was arrested his life might have been saved. The charges could have been reduced at executive government level with a little tweaking of the facts as had been done in several of the cases I investigated. The inference was that, although Howard was aware of the legal nuances of Singapore law to enable this, he was not interested in saving the Melbourne man's life at any cost. During the interview Anandan criticised Australia's eleventh hour tardiness in coming forward only after every legal process had been exhausted, including an appeal to the President for clemency. He described it as
being 'like visiting a patient in hospital when he is already dead'.
What was never revealed after Nguyen's arrest and during his trial was that he had set out on his ill-fated trip completely oblivious to the fact that he was walking into a carefully laid trap. His activities as a drug trafficker were already known to Australia's Federal Police drugs unit even before he left home. Nguyen was shadowed everywhere he went the moment he agreed to take on the perilous assignment. Knowing his plans in advance, they watched him leave his home in Melbourne early that December morning for the airport where he bought a return ticket to Phnom Penh via Singapore. He was watched closely when he arrived at Changi airport. Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau agents knew he was coming, too. Then he was watched boarding a connecting flight to Cambodia. The Bureau immediately
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