Howard to go to cricket on day Nguyen hangs

MELBOURNE - As family and friends of death row inmate Nguyen Tuong Van begin four days of goodbyes, Prime Minister John Howard has said he will spend the Melbourne man's execution day at the cricket.

Mr Howard, who maintains all efforts to save Nguyen have been exhausted, said today he had an obligation as host to attend the Prime Minister's XI cricket match on Friday.

Nguyen will hang in Singapore's Changi prison at dawn that day after he admitted smuggling heroin to repay debts owed by his twin brother Khoa.

Labour and the Democrats today demanded the cricket match be called off out of respect for Nguyen.

Labour senator George Campbell said Mr Howard's justification for attending the game was feeble.

"I think it's an outrage that the match should go ahead and if he has any support for the abolition of hanging, then he wouldn't go to the match on Friday," Senator Campbell told reporters in Canberra.

"He would lead a protest in Parliament House against it. Of course call the match off, of course he's being insensitive."

Australian Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja agreed, saying she felt sickened by the prospect that Mr Howard would attend the game.

"... this is about how Australians and the rest of the world, including the people of Singapore, will view our response to this horrendous act - if indeed it goes ahead," she said.

"The prime minister has to show some gravitas and at this late stage make it very clear that the last thing he will be doing this week is playing cricket."

However, Mr Howard has insisted he is obliged to attend, and he hoped Australians would understand.

"I have a duty as the host to go to that match," Mr Howard told ABC radio today.

"I think the Australian people will understand that I didn't set the date of this man's execution. I wish there was no date set for his execution."

Nguyen's mother Kim, brother Khoa and two of his closest friends Bronwyn Lew and Kelly Ng are in Singapore to say their final goodbyes this week.

It is not known which of the group will visit the 25-year-old today, who will be afforded an hour-long visit before those privileges are extended from tomorrow until Thursday.

He will not be allowed visitors before he is hanged in the early hours of Friday morning.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock today downplayed new hopes held by Nguyen's legal team that the execution could still be stopped by taking the case to the International Court of Justice.

He said Singapore had repeatedly said it would not accept the jurisdiction of the court in the matter.

Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Mr Howard that just yesterday when Mr Howard made a fifth and final plea for clemency.

Nguyen's lawyer Julian McMahon is refusing to give up hope, again calling on Australia to invite Singapore to test its mandatory death penalty in the court.

"We have a dispute between the law of the first world, which says a mandatory death penalty is wrong, and Singapore's law where they say, no that's okay," Mr McMahon told Channel Nine.

"Singapore then says its system is open and fair, well we want to challenge that ... we say that's a genuine legal dispute."

Mr Howard has ruled out using economic sanctions in a last ditch bid to persuade Singapore not to go ahead with the execution, but the ACTU has said it will consider trade bans.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow said the union movement would be prepared to impose a boycott, or undertake similar action, against the Singaporean government if the community supported such action.

"Enough (union) members have indicated they are more than willing (to impose bans)," Ms Burrow told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"Anything they could do would be more than welcome, including trade sanctions."

Mr Ruddock said the government may consider a request for a minute's silence to observe Nguyen's hanging. Meanwhile, Australians are being urged to wear yellow ribbons as a gesture of support for the condemned man.

Nguyen was arrested in Singapore's Changi Airport in December 2002 while trying to board a flight to Australia with 396 grams of heroin strapped to his body and in his hand luggage.

He was sentenced to death despite cooperating with drug investigations by authorities in Singapore and Australia.

- AAP