Fate sealed for drug smuggler says Howard

CANBERRA - Nothing more can be done to save an Australian drug smuggler due to be executed in Singapore next week, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has warned amid calls for Australians to boycott companies linked to the city-state.

Howard said the planned December 2 hanging of 25-year-old Nguyen Tuong Van - who was convicted by Singapore of trying to smuggle 400 grams of heroin from Cambodia - could now only be stopped by the Singapore government.

Lawyers for Nguyen asked the Australian government on Monday to take the case to the United Nations International Court of Justice, but Howard said the court has no jurisdiction and that there was no point giving Nguyen's mother any false hope.

"She is a dear woman who is understandably feeling completely desolate and distressed and I wished I could have found it within my executive power to have done something, but it is a matter for the government of Singapore," Howard told reporters during a visit to Pakistan late on Tuesday.

Nguyen's mother, who met privately with Howard last week, and his twin brother visited him in Singapore on Tuesday. Australia has said Nguyen was carrying the drugs to help his brother pay off debts to loan sharks.

Australia asked for clemency on the grounds that Nguyen had co-operated and could be a witness in future drug cases.

A television straw poll showed on Wednesday that 43 per cent of Australians believed Nguyen's case should be taken to the International Court of Justice, while 48 per cent agreed with Howard that nothing more could be done.

Although Howard has dismissed calls for trade sanctions to be imposed on Singapore over the case, human rights campaigners have suggested Australians boycott companies linked to the city-state.

"There can be a consumer strike - that is Australians can decide not to purchase products made in Singapore or services offered by the Singaporean government," human rights lawyer Tim Robertson told Australian Broadcasting Corporation television.

"Most of the major companies in Singapore are in fact owned directly or indirectly by the government there."

Howard said he would not raise Nguyen's case at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Malta this week.

- REUTERS