Once a Jolly Hangman

by Alan Shadrake

  Darshan Singh got busy. He was dressed in his usual attire - baggy shorts, singlet and sports shoes. Nguyen had already been weighed and measured. Death was only minutes away. Soon he would be on his way to the gallows. Darshan Singh peeped through an eye-hole to observe his demeanour. He was dressed, sitting on the edge of the concrete slab that served as his bed. He was praying and appeared calm helped perhaps by the sedatives he had been given with his last meal the previous evening. The day before I had called the public relations duty officer at the Ministry for Home Affairs for confirmation that the execution would go ahead as planned. There was no response, in keeping with their rule that they do not provide such information about who and when anyone is likely to be hanged.

  Even the families of those facing the gallows receive scant notice, and any information about the Friday hangings are typically released only after they have been carried out. Nguyen's mother, Kim, had received a letter from the prison governor a week before abruptly informing her of the date he was to be hanged. The ice cold way Singapore officialdom treats families angers Tim Parritt, spokesman for the human rights watchdog Amnesty International and highly, knowledgeable about Asia. "They are in a state of complete anxiety and lack of knowledge until very, very late in the day. The concern Amnesty has about Singapore is the lack of information issued on executions, the number of executions and the processes which might feed a public debate and a higher level of public scrutiny about what is actually happening', he says. In a similar vein, Sinapan Samydorai of the Think Centre in Singapore notes, "The education system in Singapore doesn't touch on human rights at all .... The whole trend in the world right now is to re-look at the death penalty. If these things get highlighted too much it's also quite negative on Singapore'. As he emphasises, 'it's a very sensitive issue for the government'.

  Critics point to the 'right to life' as a fundamental reason to abolish the death penalty. But Singapore has shrugged off such notions and looks unlikely to scrap it anytime soon. "The basic difference in our approach springs from our traditional Asian value system which places the interests of the community over and above that of the individual', Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said in a speech. 'Our priority is the security and well being of law-abiding citizens rather than the rights of the criminal to be protected from incriminating evidence'. Amnesty says the death penalty is not a deterrent to the drug trade as low-level mules, rather than the kingpins, are most at risk of facing the gallows. But Singapore's apparent low crime rates and general state of law and order have been held up as a model to keep capital punishment.

  Meanwhile, as these arguments and counter-arguments were making headlines, the dawn sun was slowly rising and the life of Van Nguyen was about to come to a violent end. He had already said his goodbyes to his heartbroken mother, Kim Nguyen, his twin brother, Khoa, and friends Bronwyn Lew and Kelly Ng in the visitors' area in Changi Prison the day before. Darshan Singh entered his cell shortly before 6.00 a.m. The two already knew each other well. He had visited the 'baby on death row' as he was dubbed by others similar situation several times over the previous weeks, mainly to weigh and measure

  him to get the drop right, but also to put him at ease during the long countdown to when the time came to put him to death. He treated Nguyen the same gentle way as he had always done with most of the men and women he had hanged. Looking around the cell, he often told them: 'Look, you don't want to spend the rest of your life in this terrible place'. He would also tell them of his belief in reincarnation and that they would come back a better person if they repented their sins.

  As he had done hundreds of times, Singh pinioned Nguyen's arms behind his back with straps and handcuffs. He then led him gently out of the cell to the execution chambers a dozen or so steps away. Once he was standing firmly on the twin trapdoors and following the usual rule, Nguyen's legs were strapped together to prevent any last moment struggling and kicking preventing him dropping to his death. If such an even more nightmarish thing happened the execution would have to be aborted and the process started all over again. But Nguyen went quietly to his death, long resigned to his fate. His execution took place at exactly 6.07 a.m. He was officially reported as dead at 7.17 a.m. In a blunt statement a Ministry of Home Affairs spokesman said: 'The execution was carried out this morning at Changi Prison'. Later that day, at around 3.00 p.m., Darshan Singh and his wife arrived back home. The ordeal was finally over for them, too.

  9

  The Miracle

  The petite, young Vietnamese woman with two small children looked every bit the doting mother. She bought them ice cream and they sat happily in the transit lounge at Changi airport waiting for a connecting flight to Perth. Now an Australian citizen, she was returning from a two-week trip to her homeland ostensibly to let her aging mother in Ho Chi Minh City see her grandkids for the first time. The Singapore Airlines flight that brought her from Ho Chi Minh City had landed at Changi airport 30 minutes earlier. While she sat in the lounge with son Kenny, almost 4, and daughter Vanessa, almost 2, her two suitcases were being transferred to another Singapore Airlines flight that would take them back to Australia, airport security officers were walking along the rows of suitcases, trunks and backpacks with a team of special dogs trained to detect anything dangerous - explosives, bombs and prohibited drugs, especially heroin, cocaine and opium. They were carrying out their routine searches to ensure that not a single piece of luggage is loaded onto any aircraft before it's thoroughly checked. There are never exceptions. Singapore is one of the biggest trading and tourism hubs in the world with the most efficient terrorist security and drug detection systems to be found anywhere. The flight would take the Vietnamese woman and her family on to Perth arriving at precisely 12.26 a.m. on 28 February 2006. They would then board a domestic flight that would take them back to Sydney. Home again, safe and sound. She would also be reunited with her other son, Billy, aged 8, who was being looked after by a woman friend, another Vietnamese- Australian she knew as Hoa.

  This is the strange story of Thi Thanh Nga Ho, a 37-year-old divorced mother who, as if by a miracle, managed to escape detection and inevitable execution - twice! For the sniffer dogs prowling the suitcases, nostrils flaring, seemed suddenly to have lost their sense of smell. Their sensitive noses can normally pick up and distinguish different odours almost instantly but they inexplicably failed them on this occasion. Packed inside her specially-made suitcase was a stash of pure heroin worth $3.6 million on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne. The dog handlers, all members of an elite security unit, also found nothing suspicious. Or so it appeared. "They don't miss a thing', said a retired CNB officer of my acquaintance. 'It would be a miracle for anyone with that kind of contraband to get through Changi airport undetected'. So Ho, even if she didn't know just how efficient the security system was, must have breathed a very big sigh of relief when they let her through without question. Using small children as cover or distraction is a common ploy by some drug traffickers, but security officers gave her, Kenny and Vanessa just a cursory once-over when they walked through the metal detector, the final check before take-off. She was on her way home, her problems solved. Or so she thought. She must have considered during the flight to Perth how lucky she was to have got through security in Ho Chi Minh International airport and again at Changi without a hitch. Had she been arrested in Vietnam or Singapore, she would very likely have suffered the same ignominious fate as another Vietnamese-Australian, Nguyen Van Tuong. He was hanged less than three months earlier, an execution that caused a storm of protests across Australia and many parts of the world.

  Depending on how many others were already on death row, she would have become another number to be hanged by chief executioner Darshan Singh. The prospect of another Australian citizen - and a woman with three young children at that - being hanged in Singapore would have been a disaster for diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between the two countries. Even though John Howard's government did nothing to save Nguyen and refus
ed to get tough with the Lion City if the execution went ahead, this would have been quite a different kettle of fish. Kevin Rudd, then in opposition as shadow prime minister, threatened economic sanctions if the sentence wasn't commuted to life imprisonment instead. On 22 February 2006, just six days before Hos arrest, Singapore attacked Australia's decision to reject a bid by Singapore Airlines to fly the lucrative Sydney-US route. Howard, still in power, tried to defuse the criticism, saying there were good reasons' for the decision which virtually guarantees Qantas dominance of the route. It appeared to many Singaporean officials that the decision to shut the door on Singapore Airlines had worsened relations between the two countries since Nguyen's execution. Singapore's Transport Minister, Yeo Cheow Tong, angrily described the decision as 'extremely disappointing .... I am naturally very disappointed ... especially after more than 10 years of protracted discussions'. Yeo was quoted as saying in the Sydney Morning Herald: 'Singapore has also been more than generous in facilitating the growth of Australian carriers to and beyond Singapore. It is disheartening to see that they have taken this and the warmth in our bilateral relationship for granted'. For his part, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australian officials would soon hold talks with Singapore about how to develop closer ties. "There are things they want from Australia, there are things we want from them, and we'll sit down and we'll have a good talk about those things in an appropriate and a private setting. We don't link executions to aviation policy'.

  In an authorised biography published in 2006, Rudd stated he would launch a campaign against the death penalty if he were elected Prime Minister. The author, Robert Macklin, quoted Rudd saying that his most important foreign policy objectives would begin with a campaign to rid the world of the death penalty. 'It doesn't matter whether we are talking about the death penalty in the United States, the Islamic Republic of Iran, or in the Republic of Singapore, Australia should get behind the Europeans, through the UN, to make every effort to abolish this form of punishment, once and for all, throughout the world, and for all time'. Elections were drawing close in early 2006 and the Howard government, already in turmoil, was at its most vulnerable. Singapore was carefully watching what was happening down under. The Lion City saw Howard as their best friend and ally. But the fallout from the execution of Nguyen made everyone very nervous and his growing unpopularity with the electorate did not bode well. What if Ho was tried and sentenced to death right in the middle of the election campaign? It would have been a bombshell. So did everyone find it expedient to let her continue her journey home and be punished in Australia? It would thus avoid another but more devastating international row if Singapore was obliged to hang this young divorced mum with three little kids.

  After the furore and execution of Nguyen, did the two governments come to an arrangement that if any Australian citizen were found to be trafficking drugs via Changi in the future to let him or her go to be dealt with in Australia? Howard was trying to regain his once dominant popularity. If Singapore had tried and sentenced Ho to death and did nothing muscular - as happened in the case of Nguyen - to save her, this would have put an end to his hopes. But whatever was going on Ho was oblivious to it all. She was out of danger and on the way home. Just one more hurdle. That would be easy. But her relief at twice escaping inevitable execution quickly turned to despair when she arrived at Perth International airport. Customs officers were waiting for her. They picked her out from the streams of passengers. Her luggage was immediately selected for a 'random' search. It was said that traces of an unidentified white powder were initially found just inside one of the suitcases. Traces of heroin that two teams of specially-trained dogs failed to sniff out? According to complete court transcripts - initially denied to me by courts in Australia on the grounds that I was 'not an interested party' but now in my possession - it took forensic experts four hours to skillfully dismantle both pieces of luggage. They found what they were obviously looking for: four packets of heroin expertly wrapped with plastic and tinfoil. The terrified mother at first denied all knowledge of the heroin, but when she realised the game was up quickly confessed and cooperated fully with Federal Police narcotics officers. She even fingered a woman in Sydney as the organiser of the drug run: Harot Nguyen, nickname Hoa. According to court documents, Harot Nguyen gave her $10,000 to cover airfares and accommodation for the family trip. If the run had been successful she would be paid $40,000 per suitcase but later at her trial, when she pleaded guilty, she changed this to $20,000 explaining the correct amount was lost in translation. She said Harot Nguyen 'volunteered' to look after her eldest son Billy while she was gone. It was suggested in court that the boy was used as 'security' to ensure his mother went through with the arrangement.

  Indeed, just as she was about to return with the heroin Ho got cold

  feet, telephoned her minder and asked if she could back out of the deal. She was told bluntly there was no backing out. More ominously she was told, Billys welfare would no longer be Hoa's responsibility. The $10,000 advance for expenses would have to be repaid, and quickly. She was in too deep. When she first arrived in Vietnam, Ho said she met a male called 'Mai' who provided her with two brand new suitcases carefully packed with the heroin. She claimed she did not see this being done and had no idea exactly how much it was worth. On 27 February she flew back to Perth stopping off in Singapore to catch a connecting flight.

  Very often in the murky world of drug trafficking strange things happen, the former CNB officer told me. Strange indeed if this woman was able to slip through two extremely efficient security nets, one in Ho Chi Minh City then Changi, only to be instantly picked out by customs officers in relatively 'sleepy' Perth International airport for a 'random' search. As soon as she was arrested, Chris Ellison, the then Minister for Justice and Customs - as if on cue - issued an immediate statement praising Perth airport officials. It was the largest seizure of heroin at the border in Western Australia in 12 years, he said. A stash of 2.6 kilograms of heroin is no big deal in the wider world of drug smuggling even in Sydney and Melbourne but maybe it was in Perth and worthy of the minister's immediate attention. "This seizure sends a clear message to those who attempt to import drugs that they will be caught'. The arrest and subsequent jailing of Ho for nine years in August 2006 received scant coverage in Australian newspapers.

  But did they miss something bigger? Could it be that Australia and Singapore now have a secret, unwritten agreement that any drug trafficker passing through Changi on the way home will be left to the AFP and the Australian courts to deal with? Did an officer of the Central Narcotics Bureau pick up the phone and call his counterpart in Canberra as soon as Ho boarded the homeward bound flight and say: 'She's on her way?'

  It would not have been the first time that such an arrangement had been made concerning the potential execution of foreigners. Ho's lawyer, M.R. Gunning, told the court that his client was 'clearly out of her depth in a vulnerable position and has been preyed upon by people, that in my submission, are entrenched in the drug trade. She

  has gone to Vietnam which has the death penalty, through Singapore, which has the death penalty, and then to Perth. I would have thought that her naivety is in the extreme'. A Singapore lawyer told me that no one can be 100 per cent sure that the Central Narcotics Bureau really were aware through their contacts in the AFP that she was on a drug smuggling mission.

  But if they knew what she was up to, it could have been an operational decision between Singapore and Australian officials - government officials or the police. Drug enforcement agencies often work closely together and a decision like this could be a simple operational one. In this case, the AFP might have had her under surveillance and asked the CNB to lay off; that they knew all about the cartel - that this was their operation. In Singapore police and narcotics investigators have absolute discretion whether or not to arrest a known trafficker. So it is not beyond the realm of possibility this was part of a top level secret government-to-government or agency-to-agency agreement.
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  Before Judge J. McKechnie sentenced Ho he referred to the 'potential consequences' of importing drugs into the country particularly from Vietnam and through Singapore. He asked prosecutor G.J. Allen if her bags had been checked through from Vietnam to Perth. Allen replied: 'It appears, although she changed planes, it happens automatically, although I do note that in January Singapore expressed a concern not to be a transport hub for these substances'.

  When Nguyen was hanged only three months earlier, anti-Singapore sentiment was at its highest and there were demands from Rudd's party then in opposition to impose a trade embargo if the execution went ahead. Singapore lawyer and human rights activist M. Ravi says that although it is impossible to prove that such an agreement has been reached between the two countries, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. 'The furore over the execution of Nguyen Van Tuong still resonates negatively with many Australians. No one in either country would want to risk going through a diplomatic and economic meltdown that would result if they hanged a young divorced mum with three kids. It would have been a very inconvenient execution.

  10The Honey Trap

  German citizen Julia Suzanne Bohl, handcuffed and manacled, stood weeping in the dock accused of possessing enough drugs to hang her several times over. Central Narcotics Bureau agents had been keeping her under surveillance for almost two months and swooped on one of the two flats she leased during a wild party. She was running a highly organised drugs ring that supplied well-heeled patrons of glitzy bars and nightclubs in Singapore and they were determined to catch her red-handed. She had been arrested during the early hours of 13 March 2002 with 687 grams of cannabis in her possession. That was without other damning evidence of her long-time involvement in Singapore's thriving drug scene and possessing other drugs and special utensils related to their consumption. The Central Narcotics Bureau had discovered in early January that she was running a lucrative drugs ring, selling and hosting special all-night parties where heroin, cocaine and hallucinogenic drugs were readily available. Her wealthy but divorced parents, alarmed that she could end up on the gallows, had flown in from Germany to be at her side. With them came hoards of reporters, cameramen, star television news presenters and their crews. They piled into the courtroom and filled the grounds of the Subordinate Court to witness what could be the trial of the century back home. The law in Singapore states that anyone found guilty of trafficking 500 grams or more of cannabis will be hanged. The same, of course, goes for other drugs like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines. Julia Bohl looked like becoming another grim statistic for the hangman. He was also closely following the case. Three Singaporeans nabbed with her in the raid - Madhi Ibrahim Bamadhaj, 23, Sunaiza Hamzah, 23, and 33 year-old Hamdan bin Mohd - also faced similar charges and the death penalty. If found guilty they would most likely have all ended up on the gallows together one Friday morning at dawn in the not too distant future.