Death-row mates sing for Nguyen at the end

by Steve Butcher and Connie Levett, Singapore
December 3rd, 2005

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/inmates-sing-for-nguyen-at-the-end/2005/12/02/1133422111059.html

"DO I have a chance?" he joked. As Nguyen Tuong Van stood in the doorway of his death row cell to face execution yesterday, just a short walk to the gallows, he turned to the Changi Prison guards who had grown to love him.

With just minutes to live, he posed the question using the prison slang traditionally used by inmates here as they leave for court to face trial — "Bu chance bu?" in Chinese dialect.

Nguyen's fellow death row inmates responded in song, joining together in a hymn as the seconds ticked towards 6am — and death.

Nguyen died a good and peaceful death, said Julian McMahon, one of his lawyers. Now Nguyen is finally coming home.

Three years after he told his mother he needed a holiday — which ended yesterday with his execution in Singapore for trafficking heroin — his body will arrive back in Australia tomorrow. He will come home in a coffin, on a flight with his mother, Nguyen Kim, and twin brother Khoa.

His mother yesterday prayed into the dawn at a convent chapel in Singapore as her son was hanged at 6am.

Before first light, at 5.15am, brother Khoa appeared on the median strip outside the prison, dressed in white. He slipped back inside a taxi as the media turned their attention to him.

Eventually he emerged, flanked by his brother's closest supporters, Kelly Ng and Bronwyn Lew, and three female former school friends. They were then admitted to the prison's reception centre to give them privacy as they awaited Nguyen's death.

Nguyen had spent a sleepless night on death row, comforted by Father Gregoire Van Giang, reading the Bible and reciting the 23rd Psalm.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil," the psalm says.

When the official execution party appeared at the cell door, which he had decorated with his drawings and photographs, Nguyen gathered himself. The group may have included the hangman, but it was not Darshan Singh, who was not officiating.

Nguyen walked with the priest to the gallows. Alongside him were prison officers who had guarded him for 20 months, some of whom had become close, according to lead barrister Lex Lasry, QC.

It was for the guards that Nguyen made his joke about his chances.

Mr McMahon revealed that during their last meeting on Thursday, Nguyen told him the joke about his chances would be one of the last things he would say to them.

"One of the endearing things about Van in the last year of his life, and especially in the last few weeks, was his capacity to be cheerful and witty," Mr McMahon said. "He thought it would be very funny if he said that to his guards just as he began his 45-second walk from his cell to the gallows."

Father Giang performed the last rites before Nguyen, hooded and handcuffed, was positioned on the trapdoor and dropped to his death at 6am.

The act was witnessed by a doctor, who pronounced him dead. Also present was a select group of prison officials, in all likelihood including the prison superintendent and a coroner.

Outside the prison walls was a small shrine of candles set on coloured paper with the familiar traced hands of the Reach Out campaign. Each paper had a message from a supporter who attended the midnight-to-dawn vigil in nearby Changi village. Every hour until 6am, two new candles appeared.

Khoa and his friends remained in the prison's reception centre until 7am before returning to the Marymount Convent to join his mother, Kim, Mr Lasry and his wife, Elizabeth, who has been comforting Mrs Nguyen all week.

Mrs Nguyen last saw her son alive on Thursday night, when she got to touch him one last time. The Singapore Government relented by allowing some physical contact — but did not allow a hug. As Mr McMahon explained: "There was a grille and they were able to hold each other's hands and Kim was able to touch Van on the face. She was talking to him and was able to touch his hair and face. She said it was a great comfort to her."

Yesterday, after the deed was done, it fell to Australian high commission officers Annette Morris and Ross Tysoe to identify and collect the body. They arrived at the prison at 10.20am in a Casket Fairprice Funerals van.

Half an hour later, in suburban Sin Ming, the van doors opened to reveal a body shrouded in white on an orange canvas stretcher.

Nguyen's body was quickly taken inside. At 2pm it was placed in the wooden coffin in a back room of the funeral parlour. Soon after a female embalmer was touching up his face and neck. A religious portrait rested on his chest. In his folded hands he clutched a cross and rosary.

The coffin was then taken to the Marymount Convent for a private family Mass.

His body will leave Singapore today.

On Wednesday, Father Peter Hansen will conduct a Requiem Mass, in English and Vietnamese, at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral, to be attended by Nguyen's mother, family and friends.

From there, burial.

And may he rest in peace.