Singapore on Friday hanged a 25-year-old Australian drug smuggler after rejecting a high-level diplomatic campaign to commute his death sentence.
Nguyen Tuong Van, who pleaded that he was trying to earn money to help pay his twin brother's debts, died at dawn behind closed doors at Changi Prison in the city-state, which leads the world in executions compared to its population.
He was arrested in Changi airport, just minutes away from the prison, three years ago and will return there in a coffin Saturday for his last flight home to Melbourne, where church bells tolled as he was being hanged in Singapore.
In a Roman Catholic funeral mass for Nguyen, fellow ethnic Vietnamese priest Father Gregoire Van Giang, who became a close family friend and witnessed the execution, said the condemned man was "very brave" up to the last minute.
Tears flowed during the 150-minute service in a packed convent chapel where Nguyen's remains were brought in a dark wood coffin after being delivered to undertakers wrapped in a white shroud and carried on an orange stretcher.
The Nguyen case generated public outrage in Australia, where capital punishment has long been outlawed. Nguyen was executed for trying to smuggle 400 grams (14 ounces) of heroin from Cambodia to Australia via Changi airport in 2002. Possession of more than 15 grams is punishable by death here.
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