Van Tuong Nguyen (17 August 1980 – 2 December 2005), baptised Caleb, was an Australian convicted of drug trafficking in Singapore. A Vietnamese Australian, he was also addressed as Nguyen Tuong Van (Vietnamese: Nguyễn Tường Vân , chữ Hán: 阮祥雲) in Singaporean media, his name in Vietnamese custom like most customs in the Sinosphere.
Drug trafficking in Singapore carries a mandatory death sentence under Misuse of Drugs Act, and despite pleas for clemency from the Australian Government, Amnesty International, the Holy See, as well as other individuals and groups, he was executed by hanging at 06:06 SGT on 2 December 2005 at Changi Prison (22:06 UTC, 1 December 2005).
Van Tuong Nguyen and his twin brother, Dang Khoa Nguyen, were born in a refugee camp at Songkhla in Thailand to Vietnamese parents. He did not know his father until 2001 when he travelled from the United States to Australia. His mother, Kim, is Vietnamese and migrated to Australia shortly after the boys' birth. In 1987, she married a Vietnamese-Australian who beat them often, according to Van.
Van was educated at St Ignatius School in Richmond, St Joseph's Primary School in Springvale and Mount Waverley Secondary College. After leaving school at 18, he intended to study at Deakin University, but financial difficulties led him to work as a store clerk, door-to-door salesman, computer salesman and research marketer.
Van started his own computer sales business in 1999. After his brother Khoa got into legal trouble, Van wound up the business. He then found a sales, research and marketing job and earned between A$1,500 to A$2,500 a month (depending on how much commission he received). He subsequently took long leave between June and December 2002. In his confession, he stated he was on "medication for acne that required 4 months leave".
Throughout his trial, Van claimed that he was carrying the drugs in a bid to pay off debts amounting to approximately A$20,000 to A$25,000 that he owed and to repay legal fees his twin brother Khoa (a former heroin addict) had incurred in defending drug-trafficking and other criminal charges including an attack on a Pacific Islander youth with a katana. In addition to his own financial troubles, Van said he tried to help pay his twin brother's debt of A$12,000. His twin brother's loan had to be repaid by the end of 2002. Van could afford to repay only A$4,000, the interest on the loan.
By October 2002, Van had been out of a job for four months and sustaining expenses which included interest on the loan and personal living costs, all totaling A$580 a month. In November 2002, Nguyen was contacted by a Chinese man named "Tan", who told him to travel to Sydney to meet a Vietnamese man named "Sun". Sun proposed that he would repay Nguyen's loans if Nguyen transported packages from Cambodia back to Melbourne and possibly Sydney, via Singapore. The man said the packages contained "white", which Nguyen understood to be heroin.
It was Van's first trip overseas from Australia since his immigration. He reached Phnom Penh at midday on 3 December 2002 after leaving Sydney in the evening of the previous day. He met with a Cambodian man at the Lucky Burger restaurant on 4 December and was taken by car to a garage where he was forced to smoke some powdered heroin. The following day, Van met his associates at the Lucky Burger and was again taken to the garage and ordered by the men to consume heroin, perhaps to help them determine if he was an undercover police officer. Van was instructed to stay in Phnom Penh until 10 December, at which point he was to meet at the Lucky Burger.
On 8 December, he decided to fly to Ho Chi Minh City. On 10 December, he returned to Phnom Penh, but missed his scheduled meeting at the Lucky Burger. On 11 December, he was taken to the garage, where he was then instructed on how to crush heroin bricks and to strap the powdered drug packages to his body. The rest of the day was spent crushing and packaging the drugs in his hotel room. He checked out of the hotel the next day and went to the airport.
On boarding his flight to Melbourne after a four-hour stopover at Singapore Changi Airport, Van triggered a metal detector. A package of heroin from Cambodia was found strapped to his body. After the first package was discovered, Van informed the airport official about a second package in his luggage.
Van confessed to have in his possession 396.2 grams (13.98 oz) of heroin, more than 26 times the amount of heroin that mandates a death sentence under the Misuse of Drugs Act (import or export of heroin of more than 15 grams or 0.53 ounces). The Singaporean High Court sentenced Van to death for this crime on 20 March 2004. After he was convicted, Van was held on death row in Changi Prison.
An appeal to the Court of Appeal was rejected on 20 October 2004.
Van's family received a registered letter from the Singapore Prison Service, notifying of his scheduled hanging on 2 December 2005.
After his sentencing in March 2004, anti-death-penalty campaigners were reported to be inundated with emails from Australians offering support for Van. Politicians and religious figures made pleas for clemency, but these were rejected by the Singaporean government.
A plea for clemency by the Australian Government was rejected in October 2005. Members of the federal and state parliaments appealed for the decision to be reconsidered and clemency to be granted. His hanging was the first execution of an Australian citizen in Southeast Asia since 1993, when Michael McAuliffe was hanged in Malaysia for drug trafficking. Nine years earlier, Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers had been sent to the Malaysian state gallows for their part in a drug smuggling case.
In November 2005, during the 2005 APEC Summit in South Korea, Australian Prime Minister John Howard made a last appeal on Van's behalf to the Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong. However, Van's mother was already informed of Van's execution date before this appeal. Howard later said he was "very disappointed" that Lee did not inform him of Van's execution date during their meeting that morning. Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo also conveyed his apologies to his counterpart Alexander Downer. Van's lawyers arrived in Singapore on 18 November 2005 to inform their client of his impending execution date.
On 21 November 2005, the Australian Government was considering a request made by Van's lawyers to apply for a hearing at the International Court of Justice which required the Singaporean government's agreement to its jurisdiction. However, Foreign Minister Downer considered it unlikely that the Singaporean government would agree. On 24 November 2005, Victorian Attorney General Rob Hulls met with Singapore's Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee to press the case for clemency but was unsuccessful. On 28 November 2005 Australia's Human Rights Commissioner, Sev Ozdowski, said Australia must keep pressuring Singapore to abandon the death penalty, even if it proves too late for Van.
One day before Van was hanged, a lawyer launched a last-ditch legal tactic, charging Van with drug related offences in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court, which he hoped would allow the Australian Federal Government to extradite Van. However, Justice Minister Chris Ellison ruled out extradition, saying that the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions would not have attempted to prosecute Van in Australia due to double jeopardy laws.