Decision today whether mother can hug condemned son

Kim Nguyen (left), mother of convicted Australian drug smuggler Nguyen Tuong Van, leaves Changi prison with an Australian embassy staff member. Picture / Reuters

SINGAPORE - The mother of condemned Australian drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van will find out today whether she will be allowed to hug her son one last time before he dies.

A decision on whether prison authorities will allow an exceptional contact visit for Kim Nguyen is expected before midday.

It is understood the decision is being made at a very senior level at Singapore's Home Affairs Department.

The visit will the last time Kim Nguyen and Nguyen's brother Khoa see him alive.

Nguyen, who is to be hanged at Changi Prison at precisely 6am local time (11am NZT) tomorrow, will also receive his final visit this morning from his legal team, led by Lex Lasry, QC.
The 25-year-old Melbourne man is also expected to meet his second Australian lawyer Julian McMahon, and Joseph Thesiera, the Singapore lawyer who argued his case in court.

Now that the Singapore government has rejected all pleas for clemency, Nguyen appears set to be executed almost three years after he was arrested in transit at Changi Airport with almost 400 grams of heroin in December 2002.

The case for his clemency has been repeatedly championed by Canberra and the Catholic Church. The appeals have been led by Prime Minister John Howard.

But Singapore's government has turned down the requests, saying the law must be allowed to take its course and Nguyen does not deserve clemency.

Singapore has defended its capital punishment regime as the furore in Australia over Nguyen's imminent death has mounted.

The government says executing drug traffickers helps keep illegal drugs out of the South-East Asian city-state.

Hanging is mandatory for those caught with more than 15 grams of heroin.

It is also applied for murder, kidnapping and some firearms offences.

Today's visits to Nguyen which may also include his best friends Kelly Ng and Bronwyn Lew, are expected to be emotionally charged.

Kim Nguyen, who has not spoken to the media since she arrived in Singapore on November 21, has appeared increasingly strained as she visits the prison.

"In a physical sense she's lost a lot of weight and her hair's becoming quite white, and that's only been a change within a week," Ng told ABC radio yesterday.

Senior Australian politicians and Mr Lasry have made strong appeals for Kim Nguyen to be allowed to touch her son.

Visitors are separated from Nguyen by a perspex pane.

"There's just no basis on which that family shouldn't be consoled, at least with some level of physical contact with their brother and son," Lasry said yesterday after he visited Nguyen for more than an hour.

The condemned man himself appears composed, even cheerful, as he contemplates the end of his life, according to those who have seen him.

Most Singaporeans, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, say Nguyen should go to the gallows tomorrow for his crime.

- AAP