Kerre Woodham: Nguyen took punt and failed

It's hard to feel sorry for the convicted Australian drug trafficker Van Nguyen.

I don't support the death penalty. It doesn't work as a deterrent in the United States, so it's pointless to suggest it would result in less crime if it were introduced here.

A clean, safe Singapore results from family and community structures that are different from ours, not solely from the shadow of the gallows. And if people wish to see it brought in as a vengeful measure, then that doesn't really put us much higher up the food chain than the offenders, does it?

But in Singapore they do agree with it. Enthusiastically so. Since 1990, about 400 people have been executed in this prosperous state and the government shows no sign of releasing the throttle.

Surely even the most simple-minded of individuals knows that you risk the death penalty in Singapore if you're caught carrying drugs. We know it through the media and travellers to Singapore get the message through the large signs positioned dominantly throughout the airport.

Van Nguyen took a punt. He thought he could get away with it, and he was wrong. He claims he was trying to pay off his brother's loan-shark debt, but as excuses go that was never going to get him off.

His lawyer says Van Nguyen went to his death bravely and well and that he'd accepted he was going to die. The only hope is that some good can come of this death - that young people will think twice before they head off to make easy money trafficking drugs for the filthy rich kingpins who never seem to get caught, and that Van Nguyen's brother can turn his own life around out of respect for his brother.