The People Call for Hangman Lee

Something shocking happened last weekend and, ever since the first rumours surfaced, I have been unable to think about anything else. After 46 years and more than 850 executions, Singapore has sacked its hangman.

Darshan Singh, whose feats of asphyxiation have earned him the admiration of the execution community worldwide, has stretched his last neck. After rashly speaking to a journalist, Mr Singh’s photograph was splashed all over the papers, to the fury of his employers. The timing could not be worse – just a few hours from now, he was to officiate at the execution of NguyenTuong Van, a young Australian sentenced to death for drug smuggling.

This is the country that dangles more people per head of population than any other state in the world. Terminating drug smugglers is to Singaporeans what yodelling is to the Swiss or Tango to the Argentines, and Singapore without a hangman is like America without Mickey Mouse. There has been talk of importing one from Malaysia, or entrusting the task to young and inexperienced junior wardens. But I have a far better solution.

Step forward Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong!

In every possible way, Mr Lee is the ideal man to be Singapore’s new hangman and I am amazed that I am the first to think of it. But before I make my case, let me anticipate an inevitable sneer. Mr Lee’s fitness as a bearer of death has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with nepotism.

True, he is the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founder, ex-prime minister and now “Minister Mentor”. But as everyone in Singapore knows, this is a COMPLETE CONICIDENCE. Young Mr Lee just happened to be the best man in all of Singapore for his Dad’s job. And those same qualities which fit him to lead the world’s most successful city state also qualify him to be its official killer.

Take his education, for a start. With his first class degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University, Mr Lee will have no problem with the hangman’s most difficult task – weighing and measuring the prisoner and calculating the length of the rope with which to dispatch him. Too short and it will fail to break the convict’s neck, condemning him to a slow death by strangulation. Too long and it will decapitate him.

Darshan Singh made this mistake two years ago, with a wretched Malaysian drug smuggler named Vignes Mourthi whose head was almost torn from his body by the miscalculated drop. “They got it horribly wrong,” his lawyer, M. Ravi, told the Australian magazine, The Bulletin. His mother was screaming, screaming ... there was so much blood in the coffin, it was overflowing.”

With Prime Minister Lee’s capable hand on the lever, such untidy mistakes will be a thing of the past!

As the graduate of a Catholic school, PM Lee is also well qualified to deliver the touching words of spiritual comfort which the executioner traditionally offers to the doomed prisoner. Darshan Singh’s catchphrase, whispered as the rope was tightened and the knot carefully positioned behind the left ear, was: “I am going to send you to a better place than this. God bless you.” But undoubtedly Mr Lee – with his outstanding education and gifts as an orator – will come up with something considerably wittier and more eloquent.

Crucially, though, he is also a military man. At the age of 32, he became Singapore’s youngest ever Brigadier-General (once again, nothing to do with Dad). As a trained killer, he is unlikely to display any of the lamentable squeamishness so prevalent among his countrymen. (The reason Darshan Singh stayed on so long was because no one wanted to take over from him. One young trainee fainted at his first execution!)

Above all, Mr Lee has the conviction necessary to be a truly outstanding hangman. Time after time, he has been begged to grant clemency to Nguyen Tuong Van, whose life is scheduled to end at six o’clock tomorrow morning - by priests, Popes, human rights groups, politicians, the Australian prime minister John Howard, by Nguyen’s distraught mother, by his lawyers, relatives and friends. They have emphasised that Nguyen has no previous convictions, that before his stupid mistake he was well regarded by those who knew him, and that he volunteered as a drugs mule only so as to pay off debts owed by his twin brother. They have pointed to his confession and full co-operation with the authorities (which led to the arrest of a drug smuggler in Sydney), and to his consistent expressions of penitence and regret. They have pleaded, they have petitioned, they have wept.

But, in his deep wisdom, Prime Minister Lee remains firm.

I believe that I have proved my case. There is no one else in Singapore with the moral courage required to drop a blindfolded, manacled prisoner through a hole and break his neck.

Stand up, Hangman Lee!

Comments

[Brian Annesley]

I am of the generation which hanged Ruth Ellis & Timothy Evans. My revulsion remains as vivid today as then.

[sandra williamson]

I have read the article and also the comments on the hanging. I am appalled by this action, and find it unbelievable that in this day and age people are still being hung, no matter what their crime has been. I just wanted to say that the whole story disgusts me and that I feel physically sick at the thought of a person being hung.

[Ian W.]

Drug smugglers are smugglers of death. Given the misery caused by their activities, I can feel no sorrow for the loss of another trafficker in death. If other countries dealt with drug dealers and smugglers in the same unforgiving way as Singapore the world would be better off.

[Nancy Lee]

Singapore is the place where tidiness rules - to the point of death. I regret that the citizens of Singapore have no opportunity to experience freedom while they live. They have no more than the illusion.

The government is and has been, barbaric.

[terry]

If Lee had to pull the lever, we might see an end to this barbaric act of legalised murder.Nothing else seems to have worked, despite decades of hard work by a committed minority.

[debi guy]

I agree totally - if responsibility begins with the declararion of intent then those in power should be responsible all the way down the line and in deed show themselves as they deemed appropriate.

[DogEared]

Clever writing with no intelligent point. Since when did ad hominem become a staple of good journalism?

[CW]

As a Singaporean, I have no regrets being born and raised here. Crimes and drugs are done by creatures no better than animals. If these creatures are not executed, what will our tiny red dot become of? By allowing the survival of these people, it shows that the country tolerates crimes and drugs to fall upon the safety of its innocent citizens. A good leader do not only bind ties with other countries to maintain its stability but also safeguard the lives of its citizen, the pillars of the country.