Amnesty International urged Singapore to halt criminal...

Amnesty International urged Singapore to halt criminal executions after an Australian man appeared in court on charges of trafficking in heroin - a crime that carries a mandatory death sentence. Nguyen Tuong Van, 23, pleaded not guilty in Singapore's High Court to charges of smuggling almost 400 grams of heroin taped to his back and hidden in luggage while travelling though Singapore on his way from Cambodia to Melbourne. "Amnesty International urges the government to impose a moratorium on further executions and to commute all death sentences to terms of imprisonment," said Ann Wolfe, a Southeast Asian spokeswoman for London-based Amnesty. Around 400 people have been executed in Singapore since 1991, mostly for drug trafficking, giving the city-state of four million people "possibly the highest execution rate in the world relative to its population," Amnesty said. "There is always a risk that minor drug pushers or vulnerable drug addicts will be executed, while those who play a leading role in drug trafficking syndicates escape detection and prosecution," said Wolfe.